Talk:Common English usage misconceptions

Guidelines

Since this is a new article, some restrictions might be useful. But, there's plenty of room for expansion, so no need to be overly protective I think. Since this could easily degrade into entries about disputed usage, I propose (as it stands now) that all entries must:

(1) show that the misconception is widespread

(2) focus on the misconception, not any dispute on usage

(3) be supported by at least one reliable source that outlines both 1 and 2 above

--Airborne84 (talk) 03:45, 28 May 2011 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 0x0077BE (talk • contribs)

Two sentences after a period "misconception"

Is this a "misconception"? The text in the entry indicates that it is an old convention that is now disfavored by "most" style guides, with some exceptions (i.e. monospace fonts).

I would add that it is mostly irrelevant since much of what we write is rendered as HTML and that standard ignores whitespace. I just placed two periods after that sentence and it will look exactly the same. I just placed ten spaces after that period. And forty after the last one.

BTW, I edited the entry to explain this but it was dismissed as "irrelevant". Hardly so, since all that arguing and getting up on a high horse re one vs two spaces is moot for html communication.

This article (https://www.quickanddirtytips.com/education/grammar/two-spaces-after-a-period?page=1) by one of the authors cited in the refs for this entry has the full story, including the part about html. At no point does that author declare that it is a "misconception" Do the other cites? I don't know and don't have access to them, but under NPOV we editors don't get to call something a "misconception" unless there's some source for that. Is thare? Mr. Swordfish (talk) 23:20, 18 July 2022 (UTC)

Looking into this farther, this entry contradicts the material at Sentence_spacing. I'm going to remove it since it is not established as a "misconception". Perhaps it can be re-added in some form, but it seems best to remove it until we can resolve the difference between it and the parent article. Mr. Swordfish (talk) 15:57, 21 July 2022 (UTC)

Indenting paragraphs

The entry here claims that indenting paragraphs is a "misconception". That seems to contradict the material at Paragraph#Typographical_considerations which implies that some styleguides say you should and some say it is unnecessary.

How do we resolve this, and is there actually any WP:RS that states that this is a misconception? Mr. Swordfish (talk) 16:07, 21 July 2022 (UTC)

It's been a week and nobody has replied. I'm going to remove this entry. I don't recall the last time I read something on the internet that used paragraph indentation, so I can't imagine that anyone still thinks it's a mandatory convention. Fiction still seems to use it, at least with printed books.

The topic article discusses various conventions for formatting paragraphs and basically says: paragraph indentation is acceptable but non-indentation is the preferred format. The statement: Every paragraph must be indented is certainly false, but it's not at all clear that it is a common misconception. Unless someone shows up with a cite that establishes it as a common and current misconception the entry remains unsourced and should be removed.

The cite for this item is available at https://p303.zlibcdn.com/dtoken/161473d224e15c43f08a9577d1cf07e5 , a brief perusal fails to establish the claim that this is a common misconception. Mr. Swordfish (talk) 13:58, 27 July 2022 (UTC)

It's not wrong to X or Y because...?

I see a lot of terms like "there's no rule against" or "it's not wrong", but is that because there are no rules/it can't be wrong? Or are there rules? What are these rules? Is there an official list or something? 2601:408:C402:7026:4D97:92C6:FB4B:8460 (talk) 22:04, 10 December 2023 (UTC)