

Why you should never, ever use two spaces after a period - apress
http://www.slate.com/?id=2281146

======
apotheon
He's amusingly wrong in his certainty that everybody else is wrong.

Two spaces grew out of a typographic convention of using a 1.5-width space
that was favored by typesetters for proportional typespaces because
typewriters didn't have half-width spaces represented on their keyboards. The
actually "correct" approach would be 1.5-character width spaces, because even
in proportional typefaces a little extra space serves as a useful visual cue
that aids in quicker text scanning by eye.

The modern convention of using a single space is the result of journalistic
publishers' desire for economy of printing paper. It costs more -- either
money for extra pages or characters that won't fit on a page -- to have two
(or even 1.5) spaces between sentences. For that reason, a new convention for
non-personal correspondence arose, not out of "correctness" or readability
concerns, but out of the miserliness of accountants.

As for the lack of studies, that's because it's pretty difficult to come up
with a meaningful set of criteria that can be (relatively) easily measured in
such a study. Worse, the people with both the resources and interest necessary
to fund such studies are for the most part not interested in finding out their
cost-saving measures make it harder to read their publications. People I know
who read a lot -- who _enjoy_ reading -- including myself all agree, though:
having more than a single (proportional or otherwise) character width of space
between sentences helps with making it easier to read quickly without having
to backtrack and without missing things. In fact, if anything proportional
typefaces makes the problem worse, because the spacing between sentences tends
to end up smaller than it would otherwise be.

For all his annoying certainty that people who are certain of their
disagreement with him are annoyingly wrong, Farhad Manjoo is pretty laughably
lacking in the proud correctness he claims.

~~~
eliben
He does link to the Chicago Manual of Style Q&A on the matter:
[http://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/CMS_FAQ/OneSpaceorTwo/On...](http://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/CMS_FAQ/OneSpaceorTwo/OneSpaceorTwo03.html)

    
    
      The view at CMOS is that there is no reason for two spaces after a period in published work. [...] So, in our efficient, modern world, I think there is no room for two spaces after a period.

~~~
apotheon
The CMoS is hardly a final authority on the matter. It is just one common
style, and is optimized for a particular presentation and publication style.
It is also used by teachers to get students to write more words when their
requirement is a page count.

------
JoeAltmaier
Amusing: his argument is that authorities say to use one, so use one. He then
refutes arguments by others that they learned to use two spaces from their
authorities, so they do. "That's wrong!" he says.

There is no argument of value in this article.

~~~
isleyaardvark
But he also gives the reasons why current authorities say one, and previous
authorities say two - all due to the aesthetics and readability of spaces with
proportional typesetting versus monospaced type.

The reasons are fairly subjective, but I don't see why so many here are
dismissing them simply as pure arguments from authority.

~~~
apotheon
No -- he gives the reasons he agrees with those authorities. That's not the
same as those authorities' reasons.

------
tjr
Years ago, working on GNU documentation, RMS instructed me to use two spaces.
The documents were processed into HTML, TeX, Texinfo, and plain text, the
former two of which auto-collapsed two spaces into one, and the latter two of
which were often viewed with a monospace font, thus benefiting from the extra
space.

I carried this practice over into the rest of my writing, although recently I
have noticed that some web systems do not auto-collapse two spaces, and when
filling out forms online I've generally reverted back to using single spaces
to ensure proper spacing.

~~~
aidenn0
The default setup for any TeX Ive used will convert a space after a period to
1.5 spaces, which is what I prefer. You can of course change this.

------
spokey
I'm a couple of years younger than Julian Assange and commonly use two spaces
after each sentence, purely out of muscle memory. (I took a "keyboarding"
class in 1987 or so using an IBM Selectric typewriter and that's the way I was
taught to do it.)

I'm not at all surprised that many people still do this. I'm a little
surprised that people assert that's a "proper" way to do it or for that matter
get worked up enough about it to write that you should "never, ever" do it.
Maybe it's the engineer in me, but I was expecting an actual negative
consequence of using two spaces. Typography is important, but I'd guess that
with modern kerning techniques the difference between two spaces and one is
slight. (In fact, if I were designing a word processing app, I'd think this is
is a case I'd account for: If there is a "proper" distance between the period
at the end of one sentence and the start of the next letter, wouldn't you
ensure that's the distance that is used whether the user typed one space or
two?)

~~~
sausagefeet
I think LaTeX does this. Anything more than 1 whitespace is ignored.

~~~
splat
Yes, LaTeX ignores anything more than one whitespace in the source. It does,
however, automatically insert extra space after a period. (Unless you disable
it with the ~ symbol, e.g. after the word Mr. or e.g.)

~~~
koenigdavidmj
It is not two full spaces, however, but a wider single space. Closer to 1.5
normal spaces.

------
ams6110
Talk about getting worked up over nothing. Must have had a deadline for a
column and nothing better to write about.

I use a double space after a period. Always have. I also still use monospaced
fonts for almost any composing I do, because I use Emacs whenever possible for
that kind of thing.

Any normal text layout software (a browser rendering HTML, TeX) is going to
ignore whitespace in the source anyway.

~~~
thomas11
In Emacs you also benefit from sentence-level commands that let you move
forward or backward by sentence, kill the current sentence etc. Very helpful.
These commands recognize sentences by the double space so they don't confuse
abbreviations with sentences. See the Emacs manual, chapter Text > Sentences.

~~~
zck
At least by default -- check out the function _sentence-end_.

------
rlpb
This is a matter of encoding. It's got nothing to do with typography.
Typesetting software should do the right thing. There aren't any rules for
spacing apart from what the font designer specified.

Of course, the software has to understand what it is that it is typesetting,
and the font needs to define spacing in such a way that the typesetting
software can do things as intended, so the specification for authors here is
really defined by the software. If it wants two spaces after a period, then
give it two. If it wants one, then give it one.

I suspect that most software expects one.

In a fully pedantic world, we'd have different unicode code points for "gap
between word", "gap after sentence", and presumably others to cover every
situation, and the font designer would then have full control.

------
edw519
Articles with the word "never" in the title: Beware their myopia, lack of
vision, and narrow-mindedness.

Articles with the word "ever" in the title: Beware their gross
generalizations, lack of gray area, and hasty conclusions.

Articles with both the words "never" and "ever" in the title: Never, ever read
them. (oops)

~~~
stcredzero
_What galls me about two-spacers isn't just their numbers. It's their
certainty that they're right. Over Thanksgiving dinner last year, I asked
people what they considered to be the "correct" number of spaces between
sentences. The diners included doctors, computer programmers, and other highly
accomplished professionals. Everyone-everyone!-said it was proper to use two
spaces._

What the articles fails to clearly mention, is that many style manuals used in
high schools in the 80's were steeped in the monospaced technology of the time
and taught two spaces as correct.

 _Samantha Jacobs, a reading and journalism teacher at Norwood High School in
Norwood, Col., told me that she requires her students to use two spaces after
a period instead of one, even though she acknowledges that style manuals no
longer favor that approach._

This is one of the few mentions in this article of this fact -- that two-
spacing was once dogma. This makes me seriously doubt the objectivity of this
article. (Actually, I don't think this article is attempting any degree of
objectivity at all.)

HN confuses this issue, since we type our comments monospaced, but they are
displayed proportional. (Which is why I also double-dash!)

~~~
burgerbrain
In the case of the computer programmers, they were most certainly correct. Is
the author really so quick to condemn while not realizing that programming is
almost always done with monospaced fonts?

Anyway, I never have to worry about this these days anyway. Worrying about
trivialities like this is what LaTeX is for ;)

~~~
neilc
_Worrying about trivialities like this is what LaTeX is for ;)_

You still need to pay attention to this using LaTeX -- LaTeX will (usually)
insert a wider-than-normal space after a period, which isn't always correct
(e.g., "Mrs.", "etc.", and so forth). You can avoid this using "~".

~~~
nycticorax
I think you mean "\ ". "~" is for when you want an inter-word space, and also
don't want TeX to break the line there.

------
nycticorax
I think this guy needs to get clear on the distinctions between typewriting,
typesetting, and word processing. If you're typing on a typewriter, it sounds
like it's generally considered admissible to use two (monospaced) spaces after
a word.

As far as typesetting goes, TeX makes an inter-sentence space a bit wider (but
less than 2x) than an inter-word space, unless you tell it otherwise. Since I
trust Knuth more than this guy, I suspect that's at least considered
typographically admissible.

If you're using a word processor with a monospaced font, it seems like it
makes sense to follow the typewriter convention (two spaces between
sentences). If you're using a word processor with a proportional font, and you
want to follow the TeX typesetting convention, I think you're stuck: it's not
trivial for a computer to distinguish between an inter-sentence space and an
inter-word space (because of things like "etc."). So if you use a single space
between sentences, it's going to be smaller than it would be in the typeset
document, and if you use a double space, it's going to be larger than it would
be in the typeset document. Or you could conveniently decide to follow the
"french spacing" convention, in which inter-sentence spaces are the same size
as inter-word spaces. Which is apparently what the author favors.

------
wolfrom
As both a hacker and a hack writer, I follow William Shunn's manuscript
format: <http://www.shunn.net/format/story.html>

"In the days of typewriters, the usual practice was to put two spaces after
the end of every sentence, and also to put two spaces after every colon. This
helped make the separations between sentences more apparent, and helped
editors more easily distinguish periods from commas and colons from
semicolons. With the dominance of computers, that practice is changing, and it
is more common now to see only one space between sentences.

"Ingrained habits die hard, though, so if you're used to hitting the spacebar
twice after a period, you shouldn't stress out about it, particularly if
you're using a Courier font."

------
jawee
The MLA handbook has some interesting information about spacing after the
period. Here is section 3.2.12 "Spacing after Concluding Punctuation marks" in
my physical copy of the sixth edition.

Publications in the United States today usually have the same spacing after a
period, a question mark, or an exclamation mark, or an exclamation point as
between words on the same line. Since word processors make available the same
fonts used by typesetters for printed works, many writers, influenced by the
look of typeset publications, now leave only one space after a concluding
punctuation mark. In addition, most publishers' guidelines for preparing a
manuscript on disk ask professional authors to type only the spaces that are
to appear in print.

Because it is increasingly common for papers and manuscripts to be prepared
with a single space after all concluding punctuation marks, this spacing is
shown in the examples in this handbook. As a practical matter, however, there
is nothing wrong with using two spaces after concluding punctuation marks
unless an instructor requests that you do otherwise. Whichever spacing you
choose, be sure to use it consistently in all parts of your paper--the works-
cited list as well as the main text. By contrast, internal punctuation marks,
such as a colon, a comma, and a semicolon, should always be followed by one
space.

------
bryanlarsen
HTML removes extra spaces. I used a double space there, but you only see a
single space. Since much of what people read these days is HTML, that's going
to become what people expect to see, so I expect single spacing to become the
standard. I bet that will have more of an effect on changing people's minds
than "expert" opinions.

~~~
alanfalcon
How so when no published material uses a double space? Did anyone notice and
change their approach because of it? Why should HTML rendering change that?

People double space because that is what they were taught. People single space
because that is what they were taught. Few people make the effort to change
their ways for something they perceive as trivial and which they don't even
notice while reading every single day anyway.

~~~
apotheon
I think that, outside of journalism, very few people were "taught" single
spacing. I suspect that mostly, non-journalists who use single spacing between
sentences are people who learned by reading tweets, SMS messages, and Facebook
pages.

------
njharman
I had a real hard time determining if this article was serious or a sarcastic
rant against people who get overwrought on trivialities.

>in the same way that waiters know that the salad fork goes to the left of the
dinner fork and fashion designers know to put men's shirt buttons on the right
and women's on the left.

Those are both examples of arbitrary decisions carried forward by inertia and
slavish adherence to dogma. Makes me strongly believe the two space rule is
another example. I read most, skimmed rest (it was kind of hard to find
sentence breaks actually) of article but I found no argument or justification
other than "typographers" say it's so.

I also frequently use monospaced fonts. So, author and these
unquoted/unspecified typographers he claims to speak for can kiss my shiny
double-spaced ass.

~~~
jawee
>these unquoted/unspecified typographers There are quotes from several
specified typographers and style manuals. I do not understand why they are
unquoted and unspecified. See especially paragraphs five, six, and eight.

~~~
apotheon
There are quotes from two typographers (less than "several" by my estimation),
and they don't even give meaningful support for their positions. They just
claim to be right.

------
dalore
Anyone feel like they name dropped Assange for extra views?

------
cincinnatus
What a useless pedantic article, how did this get to the top of the HN front
page?

I often type two spaces because it was drilled into me when I learned touch
typing at 14 years of age. Very hard to unlearn that. Unusually I also had a
Dad who was a layout designer, so I knew a lot about typography including that
you only use a single space when laying type. Still f'ing hard to overcome the
double space which is done completely reflexively by fast touch typists.

------
btn
Wikipedia has a _much_ more comprehensive review of the issues:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sentence_spacing>

In general, modern typesetting software (and/or fonts) should be able to
properly set the width of spaces between sentences to be slightly wider than
than those between words. Unfortunately, TeX is the only common typesetter I
know that does this.

------
pcorsaro
I like how he so emphatically says that it is wrong, and cites style guides
that say it's OK to use 2 spaces.

From the HLA source he cited (<http://www.mla.org/style_faq3>): "... As a
practical matter, however, there is nothing wrong with using two spaces after
concluding punctuation marks unless an instructor or editor requests that you
do otherwise."

------
cafard
It seems to me, and Wikipedia seems to confirm, that single spaces after a
period used to be called "French spacing" or "French bands". It was not
standard US practice in the days of hot type or even photo type.

------
terryjsmith
If the MLA says one space then it has changed since I was in school (~10 years
ago). We were _always_ told to use a double space at the end of a sentence and
while he links to the Chicago MLA, the actual MLA website also eludes to the
fact that it used to be two spaces: <http://www.mla.org/style_faq3>.

~~~
alanfalcon
Yes it has changed. Note: it's changed. It's no longer correct to call Pluto a
planet, and it's no longer correct to double space after a sentence. And the
MLA style guide is not Solid Snake so it probably doesn't elude anything,
though it might allude to some things (as long as we're being pedantic).

------
tomlin
I guess we've solved all the other world problems?

~~~
mcantor
No, the jury is still out on Vim vs. Emacs.

~~~
gacba
Yes, and whichever you choose, you're _wrong_ because you'll be double-spacing
in it.

~~~
InnocentB
Especially in Emacs:
[http://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/emacs.git/tree/lisp/textmod...](http://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/emacs.git/tree/lisp/textmodes/paragraphs.el#n121)

------
qjz
Multiple consecutive spaces == 1 space, in the same way 0 + 0 + 0 = 0. Put
another way, 3 x 0 is not greater than 1 x 0. Even in typography or
typesetting, the goal is to provide a single space, but to do it in a
proportion to the surrounding letters that is appropriate for the context.
This goal isn't any less important when an inflexible typesetting environment
forces you to use a narrow range of discreet units.

I've edited too many documents to count, but in nearly all cases, it was a
default software setting that inserted extra space after a period, before the
next sentence. The author can't reliably claim to know how much space Assange
chose to use, any more than he can affect how his own text will be presented
after it is processed for publication. It's an implementation detail that
often gets transformed (by software and/or humans) as it makes its way through
various systems.

------
mrinterweb
I was taught to use two spaces. &nbsp; Apparently there was a reformation of
the the double space rule sometime thereafter. &nbsp;&nbsp; I would expect to
be informed about such an important change in English grammar through a high
exposure world-wide public announcement campaign. Considering that the use of
double spaces separating sentences can provoke such ridicule, there really
needs to be a global effort to educate all English speaking citizens of Earth.
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Perhaps even training centers could be erected where people
could be taught this new important change to the language.
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; These centers could perhaps even treat those
who have been subject to the extreme psychological trauma of the public
ridicule caused by the misuse of the space.

------
handelaar
Why you should always, always use two spaces after a full-stop (when writing
for online use):

1\. Because it remains correct in monospace, and 2\. Because no HTML rendering
engine displays the second one anyway.

This man's rather ill-informed about the 'tech' part of his 'tech column' gig.

~~~
colomon
Not just that -- doesn't he give the strong impression he manually changes
each instance of a double space he runs into?

------
tallanvor
You know, there are things to worry about, and things not to worry about, and
unless you are printing a book, whether or not people use 1 or 2 spaces after
a period really isn't something you need to worry about.

I was taught to add two spaces after a period, and I have no plans to stop
doing so. If people really want to complain, I suppose I can show them the
latest edition of the APA style guide, which made two spaces the
recommendation again, or MLA, which suggests one but notes that "as a
practical matter, however, there is nothing wrong with using two spaces after
concluding punctuation marks".

Of course, maybe the author isn't as dumb as he sounds... He found a way to
get paid to complain about spacing, after all.

------
Vivtek
It already irritated me that he says I'm wrong after a lifetime of typing -
but then he goes on to misspell "Ay yi yi". Does he think that was a piratical
saying? Wouldn't you think someone obsessed with punctuation would at least
care a little about spelling?

------
zipdog
From the article:

"Typographers can point to no studies or any other evidence proving that
single spaces improve readability."

...So, there's absolutely no evidence, yet everyone who doesn't agree is
'certainly' wrong...

------
panarky
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2102892>

~~~
danielh
I wonder why Slate offers their content under two almost identical URL
schemes. At least they have a canonical link.

------
lukev
This is a trend I've noticed a lot lately on articles on typography and design
- they're very light on 'why' and pretty much just invoke appeals to authority
- "my design school taught me to do it this way, QED."

There is a good reason to use one space, and that is that when you're typing,
you're only creating text, not typesetting. _Software_ does the typesetting
now, and will automatically space out sentences in a way that looks right. You
don't need to do it yourself, just like you don't need to enter manual
linebreaks anymore.

~~~
burgerbrain
_"There is a good reason to use double spaces, and that is that when you're
typing, you're only creating text, not typesetting. Software does the
typesetting now, and will automatically space out sentences in a way that
looks right. You don't need to change your habits, because computers work for
_you_"_

Counter-argument, in the form of a strategic rewording.

~~~
apotheon
> There is a good reason to use two spaces, and that is that when you're
> typing, you're only creating text, not typesetting. Software does the
> typesetting now, and will automatically space out sentences in a way that
> looks right. Furthermore, it is easier for software to detect two adjacent
> space characters than to guess at where you meant to put a space at the end
> of a sentence and where you meant to put a space after an abbreviation. You
> don't need to change your habits, because computers work for _you_ , but
> using two spaces between sentences helps them do their work sometimes. Also,
> many people still use monospace fonts for many purposes.

improved version

------
dzuc
One of the first things I do when laying out a publication is to find/replace
"__" with "_". It's mainly for the sake of consistency; I always receive
documents that have a mix of both.

------
ggruschow
He just taught me that I'm supposed to uses two spaces after a period when
doing most of my writing.. in programs.. which are still usually viewed with
fixed width fonts.

------
haberman
I've used two spaces for a while now. It just feels right that sentences have
more space between them than "Mr." has after it.

But there's one annoying, persistent browser bug that cramps my style. If a
line wraps after the first of two spaces, the second space will be on the next
line, which looks terrible: <http://i.imgur.com/MksV7.png>

~~~
apotheon
That's an edge-case of the way that person's software preserves multiple
spaces by force in browsers; it replaces the second of two spaces between
sentences in the source with a similar, non-breaking space. Use the `diff`
command (if you're on a real OS) to compare; you'll see the two spaces are not
actually duplicates of the same character code in the font used on that page.

------
cedsav
It always amazes me how cultural differences find their ways in the oddest
little details. I had never heard of the 2 space rule until I moved to the US,
and only recently did I realize that the question mark was missing its
preceding space... I had to do a bit a research and I'm relieved to read that
the ellipsis can still be used to indicate a pause, or a trailing off thought.

------
Deestan
To sum up:

\- Some use two spaces because they are used to it. They are wrong, stupid and
annoying.

\- Author use two spaces because he's used to it. Why can't you see that he is
correct?

To give an actual argument related to value, I think it is helpful to
differentiate between periods that end sentences and periods that end
abbreviations.

------
ohyes
I was hoping the reason would be something interesting like 'we used forensic
analysis of punctuation habits to determine the author of certain documents,'
and it seems that it was going that way with the Julian Assange bit.

Then it rapidly devolved into argumentum ad nauseum and appeal to authority; I
was very disappointed.

------
lelele
Using two spaces after the end of a sentence allows software to recognize
sentences without doubt. There are no heuristics involved which would always
be on the verge of failing. That allows me to issue commands which works on
sentences mindlessly, and to enable auto-capitalization. The former is the
killer feature.

------
nchlswu
I've always been a single spacer. I understood the purpose in monospace, I
otherwise never understood the practice. Almost everyone I've heard only
practices it because that's how they learned. That reason wasn't good enough,
especially when that was (mostly) rooted in the typewriter, and we're using
the modern day computer. Some (justified) reasons are enlightening.

I was always under the impression that in a proper typeset manuscript,
sentence spacing should be slightly wider than a standard single space.
Typographers make this change when they typeset right? Isn't there an
alternate ASCII character for this purpose (entirely not sure, I might be
thinking of special characters in certain fonts)

~~~
zokier
Not ASCII but Unicode:
<http://www.fileformat.info/info/unicode/category/Zs/list.htm>

------
jawee
My problem is with teachers who insist on using double spaces after a period.
I have had a few teachers in recent years demand double space and will not
accept papers that do not use the convention. Because it feels entirely
unnatural for me to hit the space bar twice, I can never remember to do it
consistently. I just wrote a python script to convert it for me afterwards.

On a similar note, I got a 0 on a paper once because it was not in the
required font, Times New Roman. I had written it on my netbook while on
vacation and printed directly from it and had not realized that the Linux
distro installed automatically called Liberation Serif "Times New Roman"
inside of Abiword.

------
kaffeinecoma
This is amusingly relevant for me. I had a number of bug reports for my
November app Quick Brown Frog (<http://quickbrownfrog.com>) from people
complaining of low speed scores, due to their two-space habit (all my source
texts are formatted to use a single space, and they're displayed in fixed-
width).

I considered reformatting all the text to use double-spaces, but then figured
that I'd get an equal number of complaints from the single-spacers (little-
endians?)

In the end I changed the code to ignore the double space if received as input.
No complaints after that. :-)

~~~
tommi
While somewhat practical and user pleasing, it's wrong. If you can't type what
you see, is it really proper typing?

Btw. I've never heard of using two spaces after a sentence. Is this an
American habit?

------
bgmccollum
Robert Bringhurst, The Elements of Typographic Style

Section 2.1.4 – Use a single word space between sentences.

In the nineteenth century, which was a dark and inflationary age in typography
and type design, many compositors were encouraged to stuff extra space between
sentences. Generations of twentieth-century typists were then taught to do the
same, by hitting the spacebar twice after every period. Your typing as well as
your typesetting will benefit from unlearning this quaint Victorian habit. As
a general rule, no more than a single space is required after a period, colon
or any other mark of punctuation.

------
Misha_B
After reading some of the comments, I've decided to only use two spaces from
now on.

------
alxp
HTML's smooshing two spaces together was offensive to me in the 90s when I was
learning it after being a touch typist since I was 7 years old. I still double
space, but no one knows unless they view source.

------
tomlin
I do 3 spaces now. Working myself up to 4.

~~~
apotheon
You should write the Slate writer a note thanking him for the inspiration to
do so.

------
wrs
I set lead type as a hobby, and I can tell you the entire concept of a "space
character" does not exist in typesetting. Space is not made of characters,
it's made of space (in metal, it's made of tiny shims of copper, brass, or
lead).

Any use of the space bar in a computer typesetting context is just a hint to
some algorithm regarding how much space you want put between the characters on
either side. TeX doesn't put "1.5 spaces" between sentences; it puts glue that
is slightly stretchier than the glue it puts between words.

------
peterbotond
Hi Everyone, I am a two spacer between sentences, and a triple spacer for
paragraph starters, and a newline between paragraphs. No wonder nobody reads
my emails. :-)

~~~
apotheon
That sounds pretty reasonable to me.

------
lostbit
For me, the second space after the period is a wasted byte. The same applies
for the just one space after the period if you are actually moving to the next
paragraph (just a CR+LF) is enough (more than enough in Unix).

But what I really dislike is the preceeding space before the question mark.
That really messes up my brain sentence parser (and many word processos too).

------
monochromatic
Every style guide I've read (I don't have a citation handy) says that either
convention is acceptable, as long as you're consistent throughout the
document. This is the first article I've ever seen that said two spaces is
wrong, and I am not convinced. (However, I will continue to use one space,
because I think it just looks better.)

------
mmphosis
<http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/marks/period.htm>

    
    
      This is a prob. I tested!
    

This is a problem I tested!

    
    
      This is a prob.&nbsp; I tested!
    

This is a problem. I tested!

------
acconrad
I envision this becoming an Oatmeal comic.

------
apotheon
It suddenly occurs to me to ask whether those friends will ever invite him to
dinner with them again. He turned their friendly dinner conversation into an
excuse to call them Luddites stuck in the 19th century.

"You're off my Thanksgiving invitation list, Farhad."

------
Tycho
What does it matter, word processors format this automatically, right? I was
taught this rule in primary school I think, but have never used it (two-
spacing). Slows down typing speed to much.

------
Seth_Kriticos
Two spaces sound weird, but my biggest gripe with the typewriter legacy is the
QWERTY layout and it's prevalence. (yes, I'm a dvorak typer by choice, re-
learned it after QWERTY).

------
rhoeft
This is a software problem. Programs that display proportional text should
recognize one or more spaces after a period as a sentence break and should
render appropriately.

~~~
apotheon
. . . unless it's not a sentence break, as in the case of "Mrs. Rigsby" or
"etc. etc. etc.", or any of dozens of other options.

On the other hand, software configured to recognize two spaces after a period
is far more likely to work properly for identifying sentence endings, as long
as you type two spaces between sentences.

------
binarymax
I felt compelled to look at the source and search for '.[space][space]'

At least they take their own advice.

------
nickolai
Now I feel stupid for feeling bad about being a spelling nazi. This is just so
much more sophisticated :)

------
sdizdar
I had never heard of the 2 space rule until I moved to the US, so this is one
of cultural things. I believe "single space" rule is prevalent is Europe and
India.

This anyway points that 2 space rule is not "right way" since significant
portion of the world (maybe majority of your customers) will think it is weird
and be confused about it. The "1 space rule" is more neutral.

------
rradu
I always put two spaces after a period in grade school because I wanted my
papers to appear longer.

------
ScotterC
Always wondered why I preferred Courier in command line

signed,

-a die hard two spacer

------
barrkel
When I see two spaces, especially in proportional text, I use it as evidence
of the writer being a luddite or "past it". Only one piece of evidence, not
conclusive. Probably most of its explanatory power comes from it being an
indicator the user is old, educated in typing with a typewriter.

~~~
apotheon
. . . or a programmer, accustomed to using monospace fonts, who has learned to
touch-type and hits the space bar twice as a matter of habit.

When I see one space, I tend to suspect the writer is not a (very good,
anyway) programmer, and is not particularly concerned with how text looks in
reader software that uses monospace fonts -- and probably learned to type on a
cellphone. I also expect to see such people spell "you" with the first two
letters missing at some point.

~~~
barrkel
I try to use evidence, rather than using confirmation bias ("expect to see").

~~~
apotheon
That doesn't seem likely, given your preceding comment.

~~~
barrkel
No, I don't think a Bayesian evidence update implies confirmation bias; but
your comment directly implied confirmation bias, i.e. explicitly looking for a
specific piece of evidence on the basis of a different piece of evidence. That
behaviour will tend to multiply the effect of any given piece of evidence,
because while you're busy looking for that confirmation, you'll be less open
to seeing the other side.

Ironically, the easiest way to end a sentence with a period and continue the
next (after a single space) on an Android phone keyboard is to tap the space
bar twice.

------
sabatier
Worse than using two spaces is using no spaces at all. Intolerable.

------
webuiarchitect
How the hell is his personality anyway related to the news/facts going out of
wikileaks or its credibility?

------
haploid
It seems that the reason it's wrong is that typographers say it is. The author
has not given an actual _reason_ , other than appeal to authority.

I will continue to double-space until I'm dead.

~~~
apl

      > I will continue to double-space until I'm dead.
    

Do _you_ have a reason for doing so?

~~~
fexl
Yes, because my typing teacher in 1975 told me to do it.

~~~
Vivtek
As did mine in 1981.

~~~
handelaar
And mine, using pre-proportional word processing kit, in 1986.

~~~
graywh
And mine in 1998.

~~~
Vivtek
I'm seeing a pattern.

------
jpr
I pretty much decided from the title alone that I will begin to use double
space just to piss the author off. After reading the article I'm sure that I
made the right decision.

------
rorrr
Real men use tabs.

------
isleyaardvark
If two spaces is right and one space is wrong, why is it that I just opened up
a half dozen books and saw that they only use single spaces? If two spaces is
better for readability, why can't I find books using two spaces?

~~~
burgerbrain
I doubt your books display themselves in monospaced fonts. My technical
literature more often than not does.

~~~
isleyaardvark
That's my point. Most books don't use monospaced fonts, which was the case
given in the article for instances where you'd use two spaces. You don't often
see monotype in emails you send, or word processors, or newspapers, or even
(as pointed out earlier) in web pages.

If you're writing a technical manual, then you may want to use two spaces, but
really isn't that something that would be handled by the printer?

~~~
apotheon
I see monospace typefaces in email all the time. The fact you like your emails
extra-infected does not mean I share your enthusiasm for HTML mucking up my
monospace formatting when someone sends an email with source code in it.

Read and learn a bit:

<http://blogstrapping.com/?page=2011.014.10.05.57>

