Some people really get off on the finite details of grammar and design.
The people at Slate thought that declaring war on 2 spaces after a period was exciting enough to post an article about. And then re-posted it 2 years later. To mark the anniversary. Old typesetter rule which carries over into modern technology, but doesn't matter enough to merit debate. Always err on the side of ease of readability.
I read it. You don't have to. (Dullsville!!!) And nowhere is there an actual coherent argument for why you should never ever do it. As a User Experience professional, you should always choose what is easiest to read and what is easiest to implement. If it's ingrained in your brain by now, don't stress over it. Even if it were to become a war between the One Spacers and the Two Spacers, we can all think of more important things to fight over.
Like the use of the word "ain't". It is not used formally, but is considered "acceptable" based on Native Speaker Judgments. That's what the Linguistics world runs on, folks. Not the Judgments of Your Worst English Teacher Nightmare. (The secret is to observe what people do, but be inoffensive in your own usage.)
Here's a blog post from a guy who seems overly serious about the differences between prescriptivists and descriptivists. But read this one, "You might be a prescriptivist if . . . " Totally makes the point in a funny way.
In terms of User Experience, we as humans are trying to figure out the new communication mode of the internet and new media, etc. This is going to be an ongoing theme on this blog. How some people "get it" and some just don't. This is the deconstruction of "The Digital Divide". How to parse the "Native Speaker Judgments" and those who "don't get it".
The people at Slate thought that declaring war on 2 spaces after a period was exciting enough to post an article about. And then re-posted it 2 years later. To mark the anniversary. Old typesetter rule which carries over into modern technology, but doesn't matter enough to merit debate. Always err on the side of ease of readability.
I read it. You don't have to. (Dullsville!!!) And nowhere is there an actual coherent argument for why you should never ever do it. As a User Experience professional, you should always choose what is easiest to read and what is easiest to implement. If it's ingrained in your brain by now, don't stress over it. Even if it were to become a war between the One Spacers and the Two Spacers, we can all think of more important things to fight over.
Like the use of the word "ain't". It is not used formally, but is considered "acceptable" based on Native Speaker Judgments. That's what the Linguistics world runs on, folks. Not the Judgments of Your Worst English Teacher Nightmare. (The secret is to observe what people do, but be inoffensive in your own usage.)
Here's a blog post from a guy who seems overly serious about the differences between prescriptivists and descriptivists. But read this one, "You might be a prescriptivist if . . . " Totally makes the point in a funny way.
In terms of User Experience, we as humans are trying to figure out the new communication mode of the internet and new media, etc. This is going to be an ongoing theme on this blog. How some people "get it" and some just don't. This is the deconstruction of "The Digital Divide". How to parse the "Native Speaker Judgments" and those who "don't get it".
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