blowing with the wind of change....

You might remember that, in punctuation terms, I'm a relic.  I like to double-space after full stops.  I know it's wrong, but I just can't seem to help myself.  Look, I'm doing it now.  You can't, it seems, teach an old dog new tricks.

My team at work are responsible for doing quite a lot of writing, editing and publishing work.  We have a tone of voice document that outlines the various things that you do and do not do.  That we do not double-space is apparently so obvious that it's not worthy of mention.  Any content we receive for publication is carefully parsed to make sure that it is not double-spaced; any content we write never has them in the first place.  We know better than that.

Naturally, my team find it both amusing and irksome that I cannot shake the habit.  It's never really been a problem, mind: I manage the team and don't really do all that much writing.  Well, until now.  We're a little behind schedule and I'm weighing in to help get us back on track.  My stubborn refusal to embrace the single-space might potentially mean that someone else may have to go back through my work to remove all of those surplus spaces.  This won't do.

...so they've changed the preferences on Word on my computer.  I'm not all that attentive about leaving my PC unlocked when I head off to meetings.  After all, it locks itself after a few minutes, and I'm amongst friends, so what's the big deal?  Well, apparently they took advantage of this and now, whenever I lazily and stubbornly put an extra space into a document after a full-stop, Word immediately flags it up with a green squiggly line.

As a grammar pedant, I hate the green squiggly line.  I will stop what I'm typing and go back to remove the extra space.  Damn their eyes!

I know I could change the setting back, but y'know, they're probably right.  I can take a hint.

They seem to think it's pretty funny too, and are mighty pleased with themselves.  Damn them, damn them all to hell.

I can change.  I can change.  I really can.

Look. Better already.