Hi, Anton! Recently you wrote in a message to Ardith Hinton:

While many sources regard "period" & "full stop" as
synonymous, BTW, my inclination is to think of a period
as a punctuation mark (.) which is used in various ways
but may be called a "full stop" at the end of a sentence.

This distiction between the punctuation character and one
of its functions is very useful, do hold on fast to it.

Thank you. I intend to.... :-)

We must strive to use words that best express the tints,
shades, and nuaces of our intended meaning, lest we lose
those fine niceties -- first from our thoughts, and then
from our language.

Yes. The English language is like a fine musical instrument capable of great precision & sublety in the hands of a skilled player, but in order to become a skilled player one must develop an ear for such niceties & be willing to work at improving one's skill. Fuzzy thinking & imprecise language do seem to go together as often as not. At times I wonder which came first. However, once I've learned the name of something (or someone) I begin to notice details which might otherwise have escaped me... and I know how to look it up.

Others may ignore such niceties to "fit in". I just read an article in which, after devoting four paragraphs to explaining the differences between yams & sweet potatoes, the author reverts to the nomenclature older members of her family used as soon as she introduces them & their favourite recipes. She justifies this by saying the terms are "generally interchangeable" in the USA, but "many Black cooks" still make the distinction (as do Canadians, BTW). :-)

However, it seems I am often overruled because double
spacing isn't allowed in programming jargon.

Do you mean double spacing between sentences?

Yes. Opinions are divided nowadays WRT the issue, but it matters to me because my audience in E_T includes many people who are not native speakers of English & for whom the added white space could be helpful. I hear from the employees at the bank & other local businesses that they often feel frustrated because whoever compiled the software they're using has never done *their* job
... and I find myself in much the same position. Yes, I know what others mean either way. Like you, however, I don't give up on traditional methods without learning how they worked & how they might still be of use to us. Years ago my parents taught me to "reduce, re-use, and recycle" before we had a slogan like that to induce whomever to accept what their elders could have told them. :-Q




--- timEd/386 1.10.y2k+
* Origin: Wits' End, Vancouver CANADA (1:153/716)

Ardith Hinton:

Do you mean double spacing between sentences?

Yes. Opinions are divided nowadays WRT the issue, but
it matters to me because my audience in E_T includes many people
who are not native speakers of English & for whom the added white
space could be helpful. I hear from the employees at the bank &
other local businesses that they often feel frustrated because
whoever compiled the software they're using has never done
*their* job .. and I find myself in much the same position. Yes,
I know what others mean either way. Like you, however, I don't
give up on traditional methods without learning how they worked &
how they might still be of use to us.

Remember the book about witchcraft that the doctor shows to the
heroine in Suspiria? It has that double spacing between sentences,
and it looks good!

Years ago my parents taught me to "reduce, re-use, and recycle"
before we had a slogan like that to induce whomever to accept
what their elders could have told them. :-Q

Life was slower in the past, and many technical innovations were
gained not so much by disciplined engineering and research,
but by hard and painful trial and error, like groping in the dark,
through several generations of masters and craftsmen. Thomas Eddison
wrote about his method that failure is the discovery another of
way that does not work. This approach is not always inferrior in
that in can lead to inventions that modern engineers, going by the
more direct route, overlook.

---
* Origin: nntp://news.fidonet.fi (2:221/6.0)

Hi, Anton Shepelev! -> Ardith Hinton
I read your message from 05.08.2021 13:28

Life was slower in the past, and many technical innovations were
gained not so much by disciplined engineering and research, but by
hard and painful trial and error, like groping in the dark, through several generations of masters and craftsmen. Thomas Eddison wrote
about his method that failure is the discovery another of way that
does not work. This approach is not always inferrior in that in can
lead to inventions that modern engineers, going by the more direct
route, overlook.

It's interesting -- do we use today any of Thomas Eddison's inventions?
I've caught myself at the idea that we don't.

Bye, Anton!
Alexander Koryagin
english_tutor 2021

---
* Origin: nntp://news.fidonet.fi (2:221/6.0)

Hi, Anton! Recently you wrote in a message to Ardith Hinton:

Remember the book about witchcraft that the doctor shows
to the heroine in Suspiria? It has that double spacing
between sentences, and it looks good!

No, I don't. But I see my copy of the KJV of the Bible, published in 1950, also uses it. AFAIC the traditional method of typesetting... which folks later duplicated as best they could on the typewriter... is pleasing to the eye while enabling the reader to slow down & think about the content. I'll stop to admire a nice turn of phrase in whatever I happen to be reading, and the KJV of the Bible is my "go-to" version unless I need a bit more clarification.... :-)

Life was slower in the past,

Indeed. A century or two ago the paterfamilias... if he could afford it... would buy a book he liked, then read it aloud to his wife & children. In such situations the extra spacing printers used after various punctuation marks probably made the task easier. But by the time I was about to enter university condensed books & speed reading appeared to be more important to other folks.

Nowadays I often notice people on the street with a coffee cup in one hand & a cell phone in the other, some of them so engaged in what they're doing with their phone they can't take their eyes off it long enough to pay attention to their surroundings even if they're crossing a busy street. Such things tend to happen gradually until people like you & me wonder how we got there.... :-)

and many technical innovations were gained not so
much by disciplined engineering and research, but
by hard and painful trial and error, like groping
in the dark, through several generations of masters
and craftsmen.

Uh-huh. I learned to make compost... AKA "black gold" among overaged hippies like me... from my father. If e.g. kitchen waste, grass clippings, and fallen leaves can produce good fertilizer at no cost except for a bit of effort or if the indigenous peoples learned to plant corn with beans, why don't others pay more attention? I guess they're looking for quicker & easier methods. The City of Vancouver will now accept whatever organic material we put in the Green Bin, but we put the really good stuff in our compost box. Meanwhile others buy heavily advertised synthetics guaranteed to keep the economy rolling... (sigh).

Thomas Eddison wrote about his method that failure
is the discovery another of way that does not work.
This approach is not always inferrior in that in can
lead to inventions that modern engineers, going by
the more direct route, overlook.

As a student, I noticed many paper aeroplanes outside the engineering building at a certain time of year... and I noticed they all looked exactly the same. Yes, these things fly very well. In theory, or so I am told, bumblebees shouldn't be able to fly... although they do. I imagine Mother Nature had some ideas yet to be discovered by people like Thomas Edison.

Our daughter has a book called MISTAKES THAT WORKED which illustrates this principle. Allededly tea was discovered about 4700 years ago by a Chinese emperor, e.g., who was boiling a pot of water outdoors when a few leaves from a nearby shrub fell into it. He enjoyed the aroma, and tasted the water.... :-)




--- timEd/386 1.10.y2k+
* Origin: Wits' End, Vancouver CANADA (1:153/716)