The use of English

That to me fails as I find it unintelligible.

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If it is helpful I will re-adopt it in my own documents - after all, there is no cost to it!

Thank you, that will be one step toward helping many dyslexics.

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I am very sorry it fails for you, and I don’t know why you couldn’t understand or read it at all given your scientific background? In the context of the brochure it was in, the shape of the text was related to the ARO Tonearm Head. The typography on the all the other pages was reflective of the products shown. Indeed, I recall naim Director Shirley Clarke (who did some proof reading) was not in favour of the Tuner page design (below) but Paul S and Julian V were, so it stayed in the form I designed it. This was not a naim manual, but a product brochure and I wanted it to suggest that naim did things differently to the rest of the hi-fi world and the norm. I remain happy they agreed.

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Oh yes. When I have to review a document, I always begin with a “Find and Replace” of all double spaces after full-stops. Drives me crazy that people do this. It’s nearly as bad as shooting video in portrait orientation.

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Unfortunately, in both those cases, I end up loosing my place between lines, then either missing lines or reading the same line multiple times (and yes it can be more than twice on a single line of text). This can lead to strange visual disturbances. Many dyslexics will have the same or similar problems reading oddly formatted text.

I do however appreciate the graphic design in both cases; they look good - just so long as I don’t have to read them! :scream:
Incidentally the Tuner page actually makes me feel physically nauseous if I try to read it. :face_vomiting:

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And even for a non-dyslexic person they are not the easiest pieces of text to reach, not least because for part of the first and all the second the line length is too short (too few words on the line), and too much word splitting between lines especially in the second.

Regarding spaces after a full stop at the end of a sentence, I was also taught at school with handwriting to leave more space between words at the end than in the middle of a sentence.

But these of course are layout, not English…

I assume you don’t have a particular problem reading, but it still drives you crazy that people do something that has comparatively little material impact on you and yet makes life notably easier for people who, through no fault of their own, are faced with considerable difficulty doing a task that you find trivial.

If the material you are reading is sufficiently difficult that you find it taxing, it is highly likely that, for a dyslexic, that material would effectively be completely inaccessible.

Drives you crazy that I’d make a glib comment in this forum? Of course it doesn’t literally drive me crazy. If double spacing after full-stops helps comprehension for some, I’ll change my view to ensuring that this double space after full stops becomes a default. But honestly, this is the first I’ve heard of it. Does this need to be publicized more widely?

I don’t actually care much, but I think it looks stupid. I spend a large part of my day ensuring that text is unambiguous. That it is effortless to comprehend is an important, but secondary consideration.

Wait, you’re not talking about double spacing of lines, are you? That’s not what I’m talking about at all.

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And, I suspect, people who have relatively narrow short vision focused glasses e.g. vari-focals (much used nowadays) for people who are primarily long-sighted, which can narrow the readable part to only a few words, with the need to constantly re-set across the lines, which can cause headaches (nausea in some instances).

I, too, find the graphics aspect interesting but my eyes & little brain struggle with the copy, to the point where after ~15 words I mentally switched off (some may say I do this a lot :grinning:).

I still use Gowers … but it got me in trouble with my head of department when writing my thesis. As some else has said the use of English is evolving.

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What was good for people in the fifties and sixties , should apply today, is (alas) the view of many.

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I like progress in the use of English, unless it becomes Americanised … or should that be with a ‘z’?
Bring back the z!

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…and that’s a zed…not a zee :disappointed_relieved:

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Thank you for your response, I fully appreciate your view, and can only apologise for the readability problem in these designs for some people! I definitely was focused on the style and content of the pages rather than the functionality of reading.

Standard formatting went out the window when I put these together, as normally I always make text in columns that are reasonably narrow because eyes gets tired jumping from far right to far left if there are a large number of words per line, and as you say it is easy to loose your place.

Create documents suitable for Scousers.
s/.\s+/, like. /g

:wink:

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Gadzooks sir, gadzooks sir

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As I get older I have noticed it’s more difficult to read text on a page where the text is one colour in a background of another colour, like pale green on blue on yellow on pale brown or grey on a lighter grey.

I no longer bother to read one membership magazine I get sent because although the content is widely recognised as good, the house design is totally hopeless.

Even the Guardian is less readable since their last change of format. It’s notionally black on white, but it’s more of a mid-dark grey rather than black and so reading it unless in good light is harder than before and harder than other newspapers like the Times.

Best

David

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As I said, I don’t think it did me much good ! :sunglasses:

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You have nothing for which to apologise! *

Using words to for art is a perfectly good form of expression, provided you acknowledge that it makes the words inaccessible to some people.

.* A preposition is not an appropriate word to end a sentence with.
However that is also the sort of nonsense up with which I will not put!

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