Grammar that makes you cringe

[Jakob W]

Not me, but Dez . He is preparing stuff for webcasts in French. It seems that it is a thing in France that a space is placed before punctuation . I have never heard of this before . Is it normal ? Or just this particular client ?

My previous companies house style on reports was a double space after a full stop.  Nobody could explain why.

Because typewriters is the canonical response; typists were taught​ to leave two spaces at the end of a sentence beacuse it supposedly makes it easier to distinguish the end of a sentence in a monospaced face.

Edit: oops, missed that there was another page of people giving the same answer...

(AIUI it's not simply a typewriters vs typographers issue; certain printers had a house style of larger spaces at the end of sentences even before typewriters were invented, and conversely not all typewriter style manuals insisted on double spaced, but enough did that it became engrained.)

[Kim]

Not me, but Dez . He is preparing stuff for webcasts in French. It seems that it is a thing in France that a space is placed before punctuation . I have never heard of this before . Is it normal ? Or just this particular client ?

My previous companies house style on reports was a double space after a full stop.  Nobody could explain why.

I tend to do that.  I spend half my life in monospaced fonts, where it adds a small amount of clarity.

The space before punctuation thing is just weird though .  Dr Biggles does it .  It looks awful !

(There's no point in asking him why.  He's a philistine who uses a wireless keyboard that drops characters at normal typing speed, and thinks AOL are a good ISP.)

[Bledlow]

Not me, but Dez . He is preparing stuff for webcasts in French. It seems that it is a thing in France that a space is placed before punctuation . I have never heard of this before . Is it normal ? Or just this particular client ?

My previous companies house style on reports was a double space after a full stop.  Nobody could explain why.

This was standard practice for typists on manual keyboards in days of yore.

I see others concur.

Yep.

Those of us who learned to use a keyboard in an IT job 35 years ago never learned such rules, because they weren't relevant.

It was still used by people preparing documents which needed proofreading, because that was done manually for some years after word processors were invented, until the software could do it properly. I proofread manuals for software I was helping to write, back in the 1980s. I do it for a living now, but none of my colleagues know the old proofreading marks (or even, in some cases, of their existence), or know of any reason for double-spaced drafts, etc. Anywhere they hang on is just a tradition, done for mostly forgotten reasons.

[Cudzoziemiec]

I learnt all those proofreading marks. I can even remember one or two.

[ian]

I'm (obviously) terrible at proofreading but I know all the proofing marks. Another ninja skill for my docket. I still scribble them on documents and usually get a 'huh, what does that mean?'

[Kim]

I didn't think I knew proofreading marks, but I've just googled and it seems I've been using many of the content-related ones all along.  (Proofing for typesetting being somewhat redundant since before I ever had to do any.)

[ElyDave]

It seems I know more than I know I know.  I also know some proofreading stuff

[spesh]

It seems I know more than I know I know.

You are Donald Rumsfeld, and I claim my five Pounds. 

[ElyDave]

It seems I know more than I know I know.

You are Donald Rumsfeld, and I claim my five Pounds. 

Rumbled

[hellymedic]

Not me, but Dez . He is preparing stuff for webcasts in French. It seems that it is a thing in France that a space is placed before punctuation . I have never heard of this before . Is it normal ? Or just this particular client ?

My previous companies house style on reports was a double space after a full stop.  Nobody could explain why.

This was standard practice for typists on manual keyboards in days of yore.

I see others concur.

Yep.

Those of us who learned to use a keyboard in an IT job 35 years ago never learned such rules, because they weren't relevant.

It was still used by people preparing documents which needed proofreading, because that was done manually for some years after word processors were invented, until the software could do it properly. I proofread manuals for software I was helping to write, back in the 1980s. I do it for a living now, but none of my colleagues know the old proofreading marks (or even, in some cases, of their existence), or know of any reason for double-spaced drafts, etc. Anywhere they hang on is just a tradition, done for mostly forgotten reasons.

It's good to see that collective memory in yacf extends long enough to demystify the world sometimes (and that there is sufficient corroboration to rule out answers being fanciful confabulation).

[Jakob W]

I didn't think I knew proofreading marks, but I've just googled and it seems I've been using many of the content-related ones all along.  (Proofing for typesetting being somewhat redundant since before I ever had to do any.)

I dunno - in some ways using the BS marks for page proofs makes more sense than for copy-editing; the latter is often just done using Word's track changes these days. Admittedly this does assume you're actually going to usefully be able to discuss typographic layout with the typesetter, but I get the impression that publishers are no longer offshoring quite so much of this, possibly because getting offshored material that meets the spec requires so much more monitoring at their end (DAHIKT...)

[Bledlow]

I think that most of what I proofread & polish the English of (it's almost all translations from Japanese) probably never touches paper. It sits on servers as web pages, or downloadable PDFs, or is a presentation for one-off use, e.g. at a conference. Spellcheckers have greatly reduced one part of the proofreaders task, & I don't really get asked to do layout correction. I think the customers mostly do that themselves, or for corporate brochures & the like send the final text back to whoever did the design to fit in. But people called proofreaders have had their job expand into copy editing.

[T42]

Anent marking up, back when I was developing word-processing progs many held this item of nostalgia to be the bee's knees. It gave a whole new significance to "Kernkraft? - Nein danke" stickers.

[Cudzoziemiec]

I think that most of what I proofread & polish the English of (it's almost all translations from Japanese) probably never touches paper. It sits on servers as web pages, or downloadable PDFs, or is a presentation for one-off use, e.g. at a conference. Spellcheckers have greatly reduced one part of the proofreaders task, & I don't really get asked to do layout correction. I think the customers mostly do that themselves, or for corporate brochures & the like send the final text back to whoever did the design to fit in. But people called proofreaders have had their job expand into copy editing.

Yeah, I don't think there's any practical distinction between proofreading and copy editing nowadays. I don't entirely agree about spellcheckers though; they insure that watt yew have ridden is a reel word but not that it is the write word.

[ian]

I used to manage a small academic publisher and it was me that slayed their proofreaders and left that to the copyeditors. They complained a lot, so I got rid of them too.

Learned 'em right proper, it did.

[T42]

My goat is got by American copy editors who deform the prose of stolid English gents into their own slapdash gobbledygook. Damn their eyes - nay, poke 'em out with a blue pencil, say I.

[citoyen]

I think that most of what I proofread & polish the English of (it's almost all translations from Japanese) probably never touches paper.

Same here, which is largely down to modern working practices - ie we're not all in the same office any more but working from home.

I still prefer proofreading on paper but there's no point when you can't pass the marked proof back across the desk to the person who will be taking in the corrections. Although I do sometimes get sent pdfs of scanned documents with proofing marks on them.

Kids these days probably don't even know what a galley is, amirite?

[ian]

I think that most of what I proofread & polish the English of (it's almost all translations from Japanese) probably never touches paper.

Same here, which is largely down to modern working practices - ie we're not all in the same office any more but working from home.

I still prefer proofreading on paper but there's no point when you can't pass the marked proof back across the desk to the person who will be taking in the corrections. Although I do sometimes get sent pdfs of scanned documents with proofing marks on them.

Kids these days probably don't even know what a galley is, amirite?

You are. And they can't fucking well align columns.

For my sins, I have to write in American as it's our house style.

[Guy]

Kids these days probably don't even know what a galley is, amirite?

Massive wooden fing wiv oars, innit

[Cudzoziemiec]

I bet none of them are any good at carving woodblocks either.

[clarion]

Kids these days probably don't even know what a galley is, amirite?

Massive wooden fing wiv oars, innit

NOOOO!!!!

Guy, you're so wrong.

It's a kitchen.

[rr]

I think that most of what I proofread & polish the English of (it's almost all translations from Japanese) probably never touches paper. It sits on servers as web pages, or downloadable PDFs, or is a presentation for one-off use, e.g. at a conference. Spellcheckers have greatly reduced one part of the proofreaders task, & I don't really get asked to do layout correction. I think the customers mostly do that themselves, or for corporate brochures & the like send the final text back to whoever did the design to fit in. But people called proofreaders have had their job expand into copy editing.

Yeah, I don't think there's any practical distinction between proofreading and copy editing nowadays. I don't entirely agree about spellcheckers though; they insure that watt yew have ridden is a reel word but not that it is the write word.

Indeed my grate friend Dave once wrote a data analysis assignment discussing, at length, the floored arguments.

[ElyDave]

I think that most of what I proofread & polish the English of (it's almost all translations from Japanese) probably never touches paper.

Same here, which is largely down to modern working practices - ie we're not all in the same office any more but working from home.

I still prefer proofreading on paper but there's no point when you can't pass the marked proof back across the desk to the person who will be taking in the corrections. Although I do sometimes get sent pdfs of scanned documents with proofing marks on them.

Kids these days probably don't even know what a galley is, amirite?

You are. And they can't fucking well align columns.

For my sins, I have to write in American as it's our house style.

One of my American colleagues changed every single -ise to an -ize in a report wot I wrote.  If that's how he wants to pass his time, meh

[Wowbagger]

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/mar/23/more-than-half-australian-snake-bite-deaths-since-2000-occurred-at-victims-home

You'd have thought they would have learned not to visit him, wouldn't you?

[citoyen]

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/mar/23/more-than-half-australian-snake-bite-deaths-since-2000-occurred-at-victims-home

You'd have thought they would have learned not to visit him, wouldn't you?

I think that's fine - only one victim per bite.

"Victims' home" would also imply that they all lived together.