It's a practice inherited from the printing/publishing trades. The guys who
operated the Linotype knew what to do when they encountered it, as did the
machine itself. That's why the need for it. Between the end of WWII and
the mid-'50's it became standard practice. It was presented in the textbook
associated with the typing class, so it clearly wasn't an arbitrary choice
on the teacher's part. I ran into it again when I was a proofreader at a
local newspaper while a high-school student. (Note the hyphen ... I've
never advocated getting high at school. or elsewhere.)
Dick
----- Original Message -----
From: "Gene Ehrich" <gehrich(a)tampabay.rr.com>
To: <classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org>
Sent: Friday, January 04, 2002 11:26 AM
Subject: Re: Language and English
At 06:33 PM 1/4/02 +0100, you wrote:
>When I was in the 8th grade, one of the courses we were required to take
was
>in typing. I've never gotten particularly
good at it, but I did learn
that
a period at the
end of a sentence is followed by two spaces, for example.
That's a matter of personal choice of your typing teacher. It certainly is
not an english rule.
=================================
Gene Ehrich
gene(a)ehrich.com
gehrich(a)tampabay.rr.com