[NOTE: This thread was previously private and able to be seen only by the eyes of RTH thread authors. Those who are weak of heart may want to avoid this thread altogether. – Mr Mod.]
This is a private message for the eyes of Rock Town Hall contributing writers only.
I hope you know how deeply I appreciate your input and look forward to you launching new threads in 2014. In the coming month I hope to share some ideas and new developments that have been formulating in The Back Office. Meanwhile, as some of you may have noticed, as your editor I’m a stickler for using only 1 space after a period. When you submit a post with 2 spaces following the periods, I can’t wait to sweep those extra spaces the hell out of there! So you don’t think I’m crazy, or—should I say—so you know I’m crazy for a reason, the following piece that one of our 2-spacers sent me this morning will surely convince you of the merits—no—rightness of my ways! Thank you.
http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/technology/2011/01/space_invaders.html
If someone came up to me and demanded that you sing the alphabet from Z to A, it would take a while to get used the new way. In other words, my weak mind still wants me to put that extra space in there. I hopes I KAN dü bettter in da fvtvre .
OK, so essentially, if we learned to type in the 70’s, then we probably learned to use to spaces because of the limitations of the typewriter. So I should relearn all that because Slate thinks two spaces is too much? No. I’ll do it however I want!
The rules of spacing should not be altered because of something as puny, inconsequential, and ever-changing as the freaking INTERNET. When the Earth’s polarity flips (as it will, and sooner than you might think), and the Internet is destroyed, and RTH becomes a sweet-smelling mimeographed hand-out, copied, re-copied, and re-re-copied until each issue becomes barely legible, and original copies fetch three goats or twelve sheaves of freshly gathered wheat, and underground cults are formed where cyborgs dressed in black velvet robes worship tattered editions of these double-spaced, typewritten manuscripts… your adoration of the single-spaced, computer-friendly typing Way will be grounds for excommunication from the Rock Town Hive. The old ways will become the new-new ways, and people like you who worshipped at the altar of “online” this and “web-based” that will be sent to work in the cobalt mines, with nothing more than a tattered buckskin loincloth to protect you from the elements. You’ll struggle to speak, but your parched throat won’t give up the words, and as your ape overlords bring down the whip on your sunburned back, demanding you REPENT, your tears will soak the dust.
Is that what you really want?
The rule for a single space after periods long predates the computer. Did you only read the parts you felt would be easier to ignore? By the beard of Billy Gibbons, stand down!
Honestly, I intend no malice in this private post, only brazen righteousness!
#slatepitch
Sorry, I felt it needed to be said.
Had to look that up. Yes, this site is educational.