On 06 Jul, 2004, at 07:54 PM, Aaron Sherber wrote:
Grrr. How many times on this list have we discussed the "correct" way of notating this, that, or the other thing, according to Ted Ross or whoever?
Not often, and certainly not from me. Ted Ross is not god. I sincerely doubt there are any engravers on this list that follow Ross to the letter. Ross is one authority among many. His book is essential reading, sure, but advice on this list tends more towards "Go look at a variety of examples of high-quality engraving, and make your own choices" rather than "Do exactly what Ted Ross says in every case."
No one brings up the prescriptivist bogeyman there -- we all agree that there are certain standards for what we do, even if we consciously decide to do things differently.
Not standards -- conventions. Just because someone decides to break a convention doesn't make them wrong. Or ignorant.
I don't want to get into a shouting match,
Er, you're kind of proving my point about how emotional these debates quickly become.
but single-spacing after a period, especially with a proportionately spaced font, is more than My Way of Doing Things -- it's the correct way.
No. It's the conventional way, sure. No argument there. But there is no objective "correct" way. There are rational reasons (and Mark has outlined some of them) why someone might choose to defy this convention. That doesn't necessarily make them ignorant or stupid or uncooth.
[Of course, there are rational reasons for following the convention as well, not least of them being that there is always a cost to defying convention, and that's something you need to take into account.]
You will not find anyone recognized as an authority on typography who says differently.
Argument from authority is a logical fallacy.
- Darcy
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