quasigrecian thoughts

[calimac]

1. I'm seriously out of it in the pop-culture news. (Remember that I don't watch TV news or talk programs: when I do see them, in waiting rooms or in clips on The Daily Show - I do watch that - I can feel my brain melting by the second.) Consequently the story of Caitlyn Jenner is passing me by. I was never exactly sure who Bruce Jenner was, anyway - yes, I could look it up, but it's the fact that I'd have to do so, plus I'd just immediately forget again - and, like Mark Evanier, I'm already at the point where I don't care whether some celebrity has had a sex change or not.

2. I also feel terribly out of it regarding this Duggar sex abuse case. At least the name "Bruce Jenner" had been vaguely familiar; I had literally never heard of the Duggars before this scandal broke, and was surprised to learn they'd been TV stars for a decade already. At least I'd vaguely heard of Honey Boo-Boo before that became a scandal, although I hadn't been sure who - or, for that matter, what - that was either.

3. Speaking of Mark Evanier, at last here's somebody speaking in favor of two spaces between sentences. I link with enthusiasm. I really don't understand why anyone thinks that a sentence beginning with the name "St. Louis" should have no more space before the "St." than after it, and if you're going to adjust proportionality by hand, you can just goddam work with two spaces as easily as one, or else run a global search-and-replace to eliminate them if you bloody well care that much.

4. At last, an answer to the question that has baffled the ages! A former Navy chaplain is here to tell you how the existence of same-sex marriage harms his opposite-sex marriage. The problem is, of his seven reasons,
#1 is contentless;
#7 requires you to watch a 28-minute video to get the reason, and while I'm willing to read what he has to say, I'm not willing to watch him rant for 28 minutes (see above, re: television);
#s 2, 3, and 5 are distressed at the tax effects of the increase in the number of marriages (which really isn't very large) and thus all amount to arguing for the elimination of tax benefits of marriage (all marriages, not just same-sex ones) to keep single people's (not opposite-sex married couple's) taxes lower - the harm he's feeling is to his pocketbook, not his marriage;
#4 is about not letting couples adopt if they're unwilling to support a child's LGBT self-identification, and has nothing to do with some other couple being same-sex at all;
and, as for #6, if he doesn't like his church's policies of inclusion, they don't harm his marriage, and he can go join some other, more bigoted church more to his liking. It's a free country. Nobody's making any church marry anyone it doesn't want to.

5. Slightly less baffling. I went to change my smoke detector, and noticed, mounted on the upper wall next to it - we've lived here over seven years, and I couldn't recall ever having paid attention to it before - a box. I removed the cover, and found some electric gadgetry inside that looks as old as the house is. Embossed inside the cover were the words "Model KA-10." Nothing else. I Googled this in hopes of figuring out what the box was, and found suggestions that it is:
1) a battery-operated platform scale for restaurant use;
2) a keyboard amplifier speaker;
3) a remote-controlled model airplane;
4) a 1949-model helicopter;
5) a magnifying glass; or
6) a portable piston air compressor.
Any of which would be very exciting to find mounted on our wall. Ah, Google, how I love you.
In the process of perusing this list, it belatedly occurred to me to remember that I had noticed the box before, and that it is:
7) our doorbell chime.

Comments

[whswhs.livejournal.com]

The explanation that I was given for not double spacing after periods is that, when you're using a word processor, the program will automatically adjust the spacing, so doing it manually not only is redundant but risks having an excessively wide space. chorale used to quote me the title of a book: The Mac Is Not a Typewriter. (Double spacing had a function in the days of typewriters; it imitated on the typed page the visual effect of a professionally typeset page.)

When I'm editing a manuscript, I do search&replace repeatedly till every last single space is gone. Double spaces are really redundant there, because it's going to typesetters who will do full page layout on the text and make it all look pretty.

(My professional preference is to get manuscripts with a minimum of formatting. Capitalization is necessary, and italics are more helpful than not, but an author trying to do page layout is often like a six-year-old helping to paint the house.)

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

I wonder what word processor you're using, because Word doesn't. As I use Word, if you type two spaces you get more space than if you type one space. That's what I want.

Maybe it has something to do with right-justification, which I don't use. Thirty years ago, when I was editing a right-justified fanzine, it would do that - detect periods and put more space after them, whether you'd typed two spaces or not. Drove me crazy! Huge spaces after, e.g., the "St." in "St. Louis," no extra space at all after sentences that ended with " or !

But that problem disappeared after I stopped doing layout in WordStar, even though I was still right-justifying. Ventura Publisher, which was my next tool, didn't think it knew better than me what was the end of a sentence and what wasn't.

[whswhs.livejournal.com]

I'm using Word. You do get more space if you type two spaces than if you type one. But that's not the comparison I'm making.

Here are the options:

A: period, one space B: other character, one space
C: period, two spaces D: other character, two spaces

You're saying that you get more space with C than with A, which I'm sure is true. But I'm saying that you get more space with A than with B. That at least is my understanding of the matter; I haven't tried to do a close comparison. In any case it's a different question, and it seems to me that it's the one that matters.

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

No, I'm subsuming your comparison. I don't want more space with A than with B; that was what I was complaining about with WordStar, which didn't know the difference between the "St." in "St. Louis" and the " or ! that might end a sentence, and spaced accordingly.

And it doesn't seem to me that Word does this. If I want extra space after a sentence, I have to type two spaces. Which is why my point was that I get more space with C (or D) than with A (or B).

[athenais.livejournal.com]

Wow, a 1949-model helicopter certainly would be exciting to have mounted by your smoke detector!

[mithriltabby]

I remember Bruce Jenner was one of the athletes depicted on the fronts of boxes of Wheaties when I was a child, and had heard nothing since; I hadn’t even heard of the Duggars.