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Microsoft Word Decrees All High-School IT Teachers Were Wrong: Double Spaces Now Flagged as Typos

posted by Fnord666 on Tuesday April 28 2020, @01:58PM   Printer-friendly
from the and-then-they-discovered-  dept.

martyb writes:

Microsoft decrees that all high-school IT teachers were wrong: Double spaces now flagged as typos in Word:

One space good, two spaces bad? (This story appears near the end of the article; scroll down to see it.)

Finally, Microsoft found time to weigh in on the age-old debate of just how many spaces belong after a full stop (or "period"). Thanks to an update, Word will apparently treat two spaces as a typo and festoon a double-spaced document with red, squiggly lines unless told to ignore the rule.

A debate for the ages finally settled. Where do you stand? ⚔️ https://twitter.com/tomwarren/status/1253655739379470338

— Microsoft 365 (@Microsoft365) April 24, 2020

Not everyone is impressed with change; this hack, for example, has fond memories of bashing away on the keys of a typewriter back in the day and slapping the spacebar twice between sentences [...]. It has proven a hard habit to break. Others, such as Jason Howard, senior project manager on the Windows Insider Team, called for a poll on the matter.

@Microsoft365 has thrown down the gauntlet. Apparently #MicrosoftWord will now flag double-spacing between sentences as an error.

Which side will you pick? Choose wisely...

— Jason Howard (@NorthFaceHiker) April 24, 2020

Original Submission

 
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  • (Score: 5, Informative) by isj on Tuesday April 28 2020, @05:20PM (4 children)

    by isj (5249) on Tuesday April 28 2020, @05:20PM (#987910) Homepage

    Or whatever looks nice.

    I believe that the idea of two spaces after a full stop originates from type writers with monospace fonts. Typesetters probably used a spacing depending on the letters (kerning). With proportionally-spaced fonts sometimes a single space looks best, sometimes two looks best, sometimes both look wrong. With full-justified text (flush left and right) the inter-sentence spacing varies.

    To see the difference between spacing depending on the first letter in the second sentence look below for examples:

    Regular space: (U+0020)
    First sentence. Second sentence
    First sentence. Vermin sentence
    First sentence. Aardvark sentence

    En space: (U+2002)
    First sentence. Second sentence
    First sentence. Vermin sentence
    First sentence. Aardvark sentence

    Em space: (U+2003)
    First sentence. Second sentence
    First sentence. Vermin sentence
    First sentence. Aardvark sentence

    Punctuation space: (U+2008)
    First sentence. Second sentence
    First sentence. Vermin sentence
    First sentence. Aardvark sentence

    With those new-fangled "computers" why don't you let them chose the right spacing? And please stop treating your computer as a typewriter - it is much more capable than that.

    Granted, last time I used MS Word it was terrible at detecting when a full-stop/period was the end of a sentence and when it was part of an abbreviation.

    Starting Score:    1  point
    Moderation   +3  
       Insightful=1, Informative=2, Total=3
    Extra 'Informative' Modifier   0  
    Karma-Bonus Modifier   +1  
    Total Score:   5  

  • (Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Tuesday April 28 2020, @06:22PM (2 children)

    by maxwell demon (1608) on Tuesday April 28 2020, @06:22PM (#987944) Journal

    With those new-fangled "computers" why don't you let them chose the right spacing?

    Because people are too lazy to learn LATEX. ;-)

    --
    The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 28 2020, @07:16PM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 28 2020, @07:16PM (#987963)

      Man I wish I could use Latex at work...

      • (Score: 3, Informative) by Pslytely Psycho on Tuesday April 28 2020, @10:33PM

        by Pslytely Psycho (1218) on Tuesday April 28 2020, @10:33PM (#988034)

        Become a fetish prostitute, specializing in tight Latex wear.....then you can use Latex at work all you want!!

        --
        Alex Jones lawyer inspires new TV series: CSI Moron Division.

  • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Wednesday April 29 2020, @03:07AM

    by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday April 29 2020, @03:07AM (#988087) Journal

    Zero-width space: U+200B

    First sentence.​Second sentence

    Very useful to post empty comments that SN slashcode doesn't complain about.

    --
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford