well said; and change for the sake of change is utter nonsense ;-)
From: Tom Davies <tomc...@gmail.com> Date: Sun, Dec 6, 2015 at 8:51 AM Subject: Re: [libreoffice-users] LibreLogo tutorial To: Kolbjørn Stuestøl <kolbjo...@stuestoel.no> Cc: "users@global.libreoffice.org" <users@global.libreoffice.org> Hi :) In emails i tend to use double-quotes, ", when i am quoting someone or something and i use single-quotes, ', for sarcasm or when reality is radically different or even opposite to theory or common belief. For example, when i say something 'should' work i usually mean that it probably will work but that it wouldn't be a huge surprise if it doesn't. Sometimes i mean that we often get told that it does work but that many of us either struggle with it or find that it doesn't work - when i mean this i usually explain what i really mean. I hadn't thought about how other people use them. Mostly i find that people don't follow any rules and even mix and match within even a single document they wrote. I've even seen people use single quotes at the start of a quote and end it with a double quote, and vice-versa - again within a single document. I really like the Norwegians use of << but i find those sorts of marks quite bulky and potentially confusing as possibly being a bit of coding - although context quickly solves that :) I agree with Anne-ology about double-spaces after a full-stop making it easier to skim-read. I have a feeling it should be only a little more than a single space, even a space and a half-space might be too much, but it's difficult to get that sort of finesse these days. A single space feels wrong to me. So i use a double-space because it's the easiest way to get as comfortable a layout as i reasonably can. A lot of writing i've seen outside of this mailing list uses single spaces or even no spaces at all after full-stops and that sort of thing often results in commas having more emphasis than full-stops, especially when people use double-spaces after commas or when "full justify" messes up spacing. There is so much confusion about all this that i've seen a lot of people out there starting a new paragraph for every sentence. Some people nowadays seem to do that even when the sentences follow on from each other and don't add anything new. Perhaps it's people thinking in bullet-points but then getting a bit carried away. Personally i have even started using double or triple gaps between paragraphs that are about a totally different topic. On the rare occasion i do in-line replies (rather than top-posting) i try to create an extra gap between my response and the bit i am responding too. Emails tend to get so mangled that it's sometimes difficult to figure out who said what. Hopefully you can see examples of my double-gaps between the section about single and double quotes and the section where i agree with Anne-ology about double-spaces after full-stops, then again before the beginning of this paragraph. With the prevalence of Microsoft Word, standards seem to have plummeted. Now that almost anyone can produced printed documents the expertise, knowledge and skills of dedicated typists and typesetters has been lost or ignored or thrown out. For a time various companies tried to enforce "in-house styles" or branding guidelines. Word often seems to make that difficult even if companies take the time and trouble to make proper templates and set-up their own styles. One of the many reasons i prefer Writer is because the resulting documents look much more consistent and more professional than the results i have seen from people using Word. It takes much less effort to look good - and it's so much easier to have an "in-house style". I think the old rules that don't work so well with modern computer systems are too out-dated. Newer rules seem clumsy or less "well thought out" or difficult to implement. I think it's time for us to find new rules that do work for us. In doing so i think it's well worth noticing what the old rules were trying to do and what problems they were trying to overcome. That might help us figure out how to improve our own personal rules and styles, where to stick with current fashions and where it might be better to start introducing our own personal styles or flair. Few people these days follow the rules, even rules they themselves set, so why should we? I think old rules and copying ideas from each other can help us develop new ways. Some wont work at first but some might help us make documents that are easier to read and that look better. Everyone on this mailing list seems to 'naturally' have a good style. MUCH better than i have seen out there in the business world and in charities in England. The standard of English is much higher here too, especially from people who seem to think they are not much good at writing English. Sometimes odd little mistakes or typos make things interesting and "give food for thought" but always they are better than much of what i hear from English people outside of this mailing list. Regards to all from Tom :) On 6 December 2015 at 13:20, Kolbjørn Stuestøl <kolbjo...@stuestoel.no> wrote: > I have uploaded "version 2" of the LibreLogo tutorial. > Thanks to Bran Barker and anne-ology for proofreading and others for > commenting. > I have learned a lot of typography and some English. :-) > > Kolbjørn > > <https://www.avast.com/lp-safe-emailing?utm_medium=email&utm_source=link&utm_campaign=sig-email&utm_content=webmail> This email has been sent from a virus-free computer protected by Avast. www.avast.com <https://www.avast.com/lp-safe-emailing?utm_medium=email&utm_source=link&utm_campaign=sig-email&utm_content=webmail> <#DDB4FAA8-2DD7-40BB-A1B8-4E2AA1F9FDF2> -- To unsubscribe e-mail to: users+unsubscr...@global.libreoffice.org Problems? http://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/mailing-lists/how-to-unsubscribe/ Posting guidelines + more: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette List archive: http://listarchives.libreoffice.org/global/users/ All messages sent to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be deleted