I’m iPhoneless. If the iPhone is set up that way, it should pick up the easier statement-vs.-question stuff. And if iPhone is set up that way, who am I to fault the user for double spacing?
Well, to address #2 first, I was talking about the feature of the iPhone where, instead of going to the punctuation menu, you just tap spacebar twice at the end of a sentence and it inserts a period and a space. It’s a quick way to end a sentence. If you don’t have an iPhone then it’s totally understandable that you didn’t know what I was talking about.
#1) But couldn’t it at least pick up on some of the easier ones to recognize? I’m sure I could be completely off base.
1. In many Latin languages, and often even in English, it’s the tone of our voices that connotes a statement or a question.
Going to the game today. This is a quick statement that could be an answer about a subject or a statement about your own plans for the day.
Going to the game today? This is a question asking about a subject.
2. The only reason that two spaces were used after a period during the ‘typewriter’ age was because original typewriters had monospaced fonts — the extra space was needed for the eye to pick up on the beginning of a new sentence. That need is negated w/proportional space type.
In other words, stop typing the space bar twice. It’s not correct.
Thought: Don’t sentences that are questions have a syntactical signature that is machine recognizable? If yes, couldn’t the iPhone be made to know when to insert a period when you hit double spacebar and when to switch to a question mark?
Most of the time when I text someone, I’m asking them a question, so I’d rather the double spacebar tap be a question mark personally.
