The Mac Is Not a Typewriter, Robin Williams, Rules 1, 2, 3, and 4

These notes are from the little book The Mac Is Not a Typewriter.

Rule 1
One space between sentences. APA style still argues this, and some professors don’t get it. It’s not just a silly rule that those computer geeks have set up to annoy us. It has to do with proportional spacing v monospacing. Using two spaces creates a disturbing gap.

Examples:   '   "   versus  ‘ ’ and   “  ”  
In Times:
Examples:   '   "   versus  ‘ ’ and   “  ”

Rule 2
How to use quotation marks. When I write in this blog window, it produces these: options:  '  and  "

for opening quotation marks: "opening

for closing quotations marks: closing"

for single opening quotation marks: 'single opening

for single closing quotation marks: single closing'

Working with documents, my computer is set for smart quotes, but I never knew how to get around it on the blog, until today.

Use Option [    for opening quotation marks: “opening
In Times:
“opening

Use Option Shift [     for closing quotations marks: closing”
In Times:
closing”

Use Option ]     for single opening quotation marks: ‘single opening
In Times: 
‘single opening

Use Option Shift ]     for single closing quotation marks: single closing’
In Times:
single closing’



Rule 3
Now you should have no excuse (at least on a Mac) for using the opening single quote for the apostrophe. Usually it is seen like this: Rock ‘n’ Roll (in Times: Rock ‘n’ Roll), because the computer doesn’t know you mean to use two apostrophes. But you can, like this: Rock ’n’ Roll, although most people might just write Rock n Roll. But it’s just an example.

Our church used to use a theme of: Reach ’em and teach ’em, then teach ’em to reach ’em.
In Times:
Reach ’em and teach ’em, then teach ’em to reach ’em.

I used to think this could be corrected only by first typing this pair:  ‘’ and then deleting the first one. Now I am happy to know that the closing bracket used with Option or Option Shift creates the correct one for single quotes and apostrophes, and the opening bracket used with Option or Option Shift creates the “smart quotes” for the regular quotation marks.

Rule 4
Hyphens are not equal to dashes. And there en dashes and em dashes. I used an em dash in the first paragraph. I thought I had tried this previously on the blogger and that it had failed. You can look up rules about en dashes and em dashes, but I will list a few examples.

The hyphen is that Hyphen key on the top right of the keyboard, and looks like this: -

The en dash is made using Option Hyphen, and looks like this: –

The em dash is made using Option Shift Hyphen, and looks like this: —

Hyphen usage

high-class restaurant

blue-green

En Dash usage

pp. 16–23

2:00–4:00

Romans 12:1–3

Em Dash usage

Most importantly—in my opinion—it is used for interruptions in a sentence--where most people use 2 hyphens, as I just did.

The book warns that fonts that are name for cities—Geneva, New York for example—sometimes have the key patterns switched.

Fun stuff!