The Vine: February 11, 2009
Hi Sars,
I’m pretty sure I know the answer to this, but I don’t have the sources to back me up: I’m doing a couple of different volunteer things that require me to receive and sometimes edit text from other people, and I keep on running into people putting two spaces after a period.
Now, my understanding is that two spaces was proper when people were using typewriters, non-proportional fonts, etc, and now that most things are printed in proportional fonts having only one space is standard. However, I don’t want to start editing the hell out of people’s stuff if it’s just a matter of preference, as opposed to something that should not be done…have to walk carefully around these volunteer-type people.
So, can you/Garner/Webster’s back me up and give me the authority to banish the double spaces?
Thanks,
Don’t get me started on the serial comma…
Dear That Line Starts Right Behind Me,
Garner didn’t have any words of wisdom on the subject; the AP Stylebook didn’t either.But the Chicago Manual (15th ed.) has this to say: “A single character space, not two spaces, should be left after periods at the ends of sentences[.]”While the text didn’t add anything about the rationale, I believe your assumption is correct.
I still insert a double space after periods because it’s automatic; I learned it in typing class 20 years ago and I’ll never break myself of it now.But it only takes a quick search-and-replace to get rid of them, and if a volunteer takes issue with it, perhaps he or she isn’t busy enough, and needs to be given other tasks to focus on.
Hi Sarah.
I was up until very recently seriously involved with a man who was deployed to Afghanistan about four months ago. We started dating in April, after we met at some mutual friends’ wedding. I was the maid of honor, and he pulled the “I introduced the bride and groom, now bride owes me” card and proceeded to fiercely pursue me.
I was actually living with someone else at the time, so I wasn’t really all that interested at first. It was only after weeks of flowers, emails, and a meeting over drinks (which was supposed to end with me very nicely telling him to get lost), that I finally gave in. He told me about the upcoming deployment and assuming everything went well up to that point, asked if I was “okay” with starting something with the knowledge that he would be away for at least a year. After much thought and a few more weeks of talking constantly, I decided it was worth a shot and went with it.
Fast forward to me dumping boyfriend-of-the-moment, moving out, and completely immersing myself into our relationship. For five months it was as close to perfect as I’m comfortable being. He made me happy and vice versa. I am not going to try to describe our relationship, as words don’t really cut it. We just…worked.
Cut to two weeks ago. Specifically, our 10-month anniversary. Boy is in Afghanistan. I am home when I’m not working. I do not go out. I do not speak to other boys. I behave in the manner an Army “wife” is expected to. I probably do a better job than 80 percent of said wives. And one day over AIM messenger, I am dumped.
Boy says he tried as hard as he could to love me the way he thinks he should, but he just couldn’t do it anymore.There was no fight that started it, only a bit more distance in conversations. There were none of the problems most deployed couples seem to have. It was literally out of the blue. Obviously, I was crushed.
We still speak on messenger every day since It happened. Really, not a whole lot has changed except for the lack of “I love you”s at the end of the conversations.I’m almost content to let it be, but I feel like I’ve come to a point where I need to make a decision one way or another. I don’t want to stop talking to him, but I still have the exact same routine as I did before we “split” (wake up, talk to boy. come home, talk to boy), and it’s fooling my brain into thinking everything is fine and its so obviously not.
I’ve tried to talk about it with friends and I keep getting the same speech; he doesn’t deserve you, you’re better off, you’re too young to sit around waiting anyway. But the cookie-cutter friend reassurances don’t really seem to fit the situation. I don’t feel like this is a typical break-up, but there’s a very good possibility I’m in denial.
I don’t want anyone but him. In the past after a breakup I’ve jumped right back onto the dating wagon, usually landing in a long-term relationship because of it. This time, I can’t even bring myself to look at anyone else. The thought of dating, sleeping next to/with any other man makes me almost physically sick. I’ve thought about it over and over and can’t picture myself with anyone else.
I feel as if his decision was not based on how he feels, rather, by the situation he’s in. He is at war, after all, and a long-distance relationship is probably made that much harder by the conditions over there. I know he sees other soldiers’ wives running around on them, and that would cause anyone to doubt things.Also, I know he feels guilty because I’m only 24 and most of my friends are running the scene while I sit at home (completely my choice).My friends tell me all of these reasons are just excuses I’m making for his behavior, but I feel like there are extenuating circumstances. Thus, I need your input.
So my question is this: Should I try to wait it out and see if he comes around? Try to change his mind? Or just stay here and ride it out until he comes home like I’ve been doing for four months? I feel as if I have invested insane amounts of time and emotion into our relationship, and I feel like moving on right now would just be a waste of all of it. Right now, being lonely feels like a better alternative than giving up.
I very well might be making excuses for him and being incredibly weak for not being able to just shrug it off like everyone recommends. I need an objective voice, Sars.Any advice at all would be much appreciated.
Tired of trying to get advice from the cat
Dear Cat,
It’s not weakness, and it’s not about shrugging it off; I don’t think your friends want you to act like you don’t care.But it is time to start acting like he dumped you, and that means telling him you don’t want to communicate with him for 90 days, then blocking his IMs and not responding to any calls, emails, Facebook messages, whatever.
I agree that extenuating circumstances do exist that would make it dicier to cut him off for three months than in a relationship between civilians, like if you thought cutting him off would fuck with his focus or cause him to endanger himself — but the thing is, the breakup was his idea, and if he didn’t think that would have consequences, he…should have.He doesn’t really get to keep you hanging on waiting for him to get home when he’s not interested in doing the heavy lifting.
And you know, he doesn’t really get to keep you at home twiddling your thumbs, either.You can tell yourself whatever you want about Army-wife culture, but 1) he didn’t marry you, and 2) even if he had, going straight from work to home to work to home is ridiculous.He doesn’t own you; you’re allowed to go play cards with some friends or something, and he can suck it up and trust you.
You don’t sound to me like you have any idea what you want from your life outside of whatever “boyfriend of the moment” is in play.You dumped a guy you lived with to go out with this guy, and now you don’t want to let go of this guy because of everything you’ve invested in, and given up for, him.But is this really what you want — this guy who pursues you hardcore, then changes his mind?This guy who expects you to sit at home, doing nothing, being a good 19th-century girl and darning his socks, while he’s away — and you’re not even married?What do you want to do at night?What do you want to do with your life?
You’re allowed to care, you’re allowed to be sad, you’re allowed to feel ripped off that you gave up your other boyfriend for the soldier and everything was great and then he got deployed and it ruined everything.You’re not the first woman the Army fucked sideways in this regard; you’re not even the first today.It’s a shitty situation.But it’s time for you to do two things: 1) accept that this is over, tell him that you are moving on, and do it; and 2) think about why you need so badly to play this obedient, mated role.Don’t date, don’t move in with anyone, don’t take orders from anyone but yourself.
He can “come around” or not; he’s not the only one who gets to make decisions here.You could have negged him back when he started wooing you; you could have told him to get bent when he started acting distant.I understand he’s deployed, but that doesn’t mean he’s going to break if you stick up for yourself, and if he does, well, he should have tried harder in the relationship if he didn’t want that to happen.Stop acting like what he wants is the only thing that counts.
Dear Sars:
In the past, I’ve often opted to avoid situations that might lead to arguments. I thought I was being smart. But recently I’ve been reading a little bit about being passive-aggressive and also about rationalizing things. So now, of course, I’m suspicious of all my motives.
Giving someone the silent treatment is a form of passive-aggressive behavior. I’m guessing the same is true of avoiding someone. The other day I decided to beg off from a social situation because I thought there was a higher-than-average chance that it might degenerate into a verbal argument between one of the people there and myself.
If avoiding these situations isn’t the answer — I assume that it can’t be both passive-aggressive AND the answer, but please correct me if I’m wrong — what, then, is an appropriate response?
Thank you.
Cryptid
Dear Cryp,
I wouldn’t call avoiding the situation “passive-aggressive.”It’s…”avoidant,” and that’s not always a bad thing either.You chose the least uncomfortable of the available options for everyone involved, and yet another term for this is “courteous.”
But there’s more than one way to avoid an argument, and the way you describe this particular situation makes it sound like it’s a weather report.You can choose not to take the argument bait; you can choose to walk away if things get heated.You can stay away from touchy subjects.You can exchange pleasantries and then excuse yourself after five minutes.You have options here — you do.Arguments don’t just move in like warm fronts.
“Passive-aggressive” isn’t the same thing as “unable to handle confrontation effectively,” and I think you’ve conflated them.Neither is exactly a positive, though, so maybe it’s time to switch your reading list to books like Difficult Conversations or The Dance of Anger and learn not to see your interactions in such a binary fun/arguing way.
Tags: boys (and girls) etiquette grammar
I’ll just say that when I was a lawyer, I didn’t double-space. No one cared. Everything looked fine. And those were appellate briefs, where the formatting is fairly ridiculously micromanaged.
Having said that — and I can say this, because I say it with love — using lawyers to decide how documents should be written and formatted by normal humans is like using doctors to determine how good your penmanship should be. I never, ever read worse writing in my life than the writing that came from other lawyers.
Garner himself has been known to explain that attorneys are sometimes guilty of making documents incomprehensible ON PURPOSE (he’s heard them admit it) because it protects the business if nobody except lawyers can understand and manage legal documents. I’m not at all suggesting this applies to anyone who’s involved in this discussion, but for many reasons, I don’t think what happens in legal documents is a good touchstone for what day-to-day communication should look like. (But it’s a good reminder that it largely depends on where you are.)
“[U]sing lawyers to decide how documents should be written and formatted by normal humans is like using doctors to determine how good your penmanship should be.”
Sister, you can sew that on a pillow. Sometimes, I think my eyes are going to bleed from reading some of the crap spewed by my fellow members of the bar. There are lawyers, and there are lawyers who are also good writers, but good writing is neither necessary nor sufficient to practice law.
Cat, I agree with Sars. When my ex and I broke up, we tried maintaining our friendship, but communicating that much wasn’t healthy. I ended up feeling like we weren’t really broken up.The only solution was to not communicate for a good long while.
You need to get out and do your best to enjoy life. If, somewhere down the line, he changes his mind about your relationship and you’re still available, you can reevaluate your feelings. If you sit at home waiting for him, you may miss out on a lot.
90 days might not be long enough. In my case YEARS wasn’t long enough. Sometimes it really is best to cut off all contact and completely move on, no looking back. If he returns and thinks he made a mistake then he can make contact and you can ask why he called, see if you’re both willing to try again. But if he’s contacting you just to say hi then check yourself and be sure you can really handle being just friends. Speaking from personal experience, it sucks being in love with an ex who thinks of you as a wonderful and amazing and awesome … FRIEND. :\
“There are lawyers, and there are lawyers who are also good writers, but good writing is neither necessary nor sufficient to practice law.”
A big giant amen, and a wall sized poster, please. It can go next to my other poster, which reads “Your ‘gut-feeling’ is not law.”
Double space after periods: Check to see if there is any house style or if it is a certain field, see if there is a general style book that reigns. For example, humanities areas usually run by the MLA or the Chicago Manual, both use only a single space after periods. Commercial publications (of all fields) usually run with the AP style which calls for one space after a period. Medical fields usually run with the AMA, which has no official stance but unless it is for public consumption (articles etc., see above) most medical regulatory documents use two spaces after a period.
So, check for a preferred house style, but if none, one space after periods is the most common usage nowadays.
Cat, I think you feel like if you are a good enough “wife”, he’ll come back to you. Part of it is because he hasn’t cut off that IM string. So you have to do it, and do it for you.
It’s ok if you don’t want to date for a while. That’s standard for someone who was unceremoniously dumped by someone they thought they could trust. But going out with your friends just for the pleasure of reconnecting with them, that you should definitely allow yourself to do. I get the feeling you neglected them quite a bit to spend all your time with your guy, and they would be relieved to have you back, which is why they are telling you to move on, nothing more.
Don’t stay home and wait for him to come back and have changed his mind. It’s possible that he has changed so much you wouldn’t like the person who comes back anyway. Then you will have really wasted your time, like your friends say.
If you’re going to be waiting anything out, I’d take SARS’ advice and tell him: “I’m sorry, but I need some time without IMs from you to sort out my feelings about this. Maybe at some point we can be friends, but I need some space now.” Then resist any impulse to get in touch with him, not just for 90 days, but for however long it takes to sort these feelings out. I have a feeling that the kind of closure you really need is some face to face time with this guy so you can tell him in person how hurtful he was. If so, you’re totally allowed and entitled to go incommunicado until and unless he provides you an opportunity for it.
Regarding Cryptid’s situation:
There’s an easy way for her to tell if she’s being passive-aggressive. It’s aggressive passivity; passivity used as a weapon. If she’s blaming someone else for the outcome of her own choice or failure to make a choice.
The person who says, “Let’s go out for dinner,” declines to offer any suggestions or preferences as to where to go when asked, making the other person choose the restaurant, then later complains that the place chosen was not where they wanted to go is being passive-aggressive.
Choosing not to put oneself into a situation where one anticipates a conflict occurring is not, in itself, passive-aggressive. Going somewhere where conflict is expected, not taking any action to avoid or defuse the conflict while there, and then later, being angry at another party for not preventing the conflict is being passive aggressive.
I don’t have any advice to offer.
But ‘Arguments don’t just move in like warm fronts’ is brilliant! And reminds me of a colleague I was fond of who used to describe the atmosphere after an argument as a ‘coolth’.
I’m going to have to go with what someone said earlier about legibility. I also have to write and edit long technical reports that are broken up by few, if any, graphics. Standard is 11 point Times New Roman, left justified. Without the double space, it is just too bunchy. MUCH easier to read with the double space.
And I cannot agree more with the break-off-contact-with-the-ex advice. This is good advice even when hard to implement (for example, two people who are part of the same grad school seminar). When it’s so much easier, from a logistical standpoint, it is MANDATORY.
As a professional academic (history professor) and a regular participant on academic forums, I would just like to quote a colleague when I say that “I will stop putting two spaces after a period when they pry my cold, dead hands off the space bar.”
At one job a few years ago, my (wicked) boss once waved a finished report in front of my face and said, “Why is there only one space after the periods?!” Um, because you don’t need two? I had never heard of that convention until I had to retype that freaking report.
I was never so glad to get fired in my life.
“I will stop putting two spaces after a period when they pry my cold, dead hands off the space bar.”
Sure. But if you write professionally, they will pry your cold, dead hands off the space bar with the weapons of editing and house style. I think part of the reason there are divergent views here is that there are three different questions consisting of (1) what is standard in particular contexts, (2) what should be standard in particular contexts, and (3) what you particularly prefer. For me, (3) is mostly irrelevant. In fact, in most of the writing I do, (1) and (2) are also irrelevant, because as I said, most of my writing is online and not in print, meaning I can type as many spaces as I want and it’s still only showing one, unless I’m screwing up the code.
Twice lately, I’ve noticed Sars’ nickname being ALL CAPPED when it’s clearly not a cheer. She’s not the disease, y’all.
Just sayin’. It’s driving me bats.
(Corrections to me from the lady herself are of course welcomed – but I have a bit of a thing about getting people’s names right, and can’t recall er ever capping it except to say she’s NOT communicable.)
@Diane: That doesn’t really bother me anymore, but I appreciate the thought.
@Cryp: I’ve been reading the book “The Nice Girl Syndrome” by Beverly Engel and it addresses a lot of these issues: effective coping strategies and ways to deal with conflict and anger effectively without resorting to avoidance or passive-aggressive tactics. It gets into childhood experiences and why many women are the way they are then gives you strategies to get past it.
Cat. Cut off all communication and move on. I wasn’t dumped, I left for a variety of reasons. I maintained contact because I thought I was being supportive of the other person. Instead, I got dragged back in, and ended up having to go through the whole thing a second time. Cut your losses.
Cryptid, another worthwhile read is ‘Your Perfect Right’. Can’t remember the author right now. I had the same problem as you, and still do to some extent. It’s worth taking the time to do something about it, even if you need the help of a counsellor. If you don’t, you can end up like me…overlooked at work because you seem to passive or finding yourself in an unhappy relationship because you can’t ‘get what you want’.
And last…TWO spaces please. I know it’s an artifact from the typewriter days but it does make documents easier to read, I find. Be wary of find and replace. It does work but be careful with the ‘yes to all’ button.
Cat, I can understand your reluctance to completely cut ties. I’m a navy wife, and my husband recently returned from 6 months in the Gulf. We have a very strong relationship but we still had some communication issues while he was gone. I can totally get not wanting to cut him off and then hearing that something happened to him. However, I agree with the other posters that you need to take care of yourself first. Let him know exactly why you’re cutting off contact. You have my sympathy, though. I know the guys worry about what the women are doing while they’re away, but I don’t think the woman’s side is any easier.
This is cryptid, the avoider. Thanks, everyone, for all the advice and recommendations. So far it’s worked. I can’t speak to the sustainability of this strategy over the long run, but positive results so far. I love this place.