Should we use one space or two after a period?

[Pleonast]

Spacing after the period at the end of a sentence is a typesetting problem, not a writing problem. That is, writers can do whatever they want; it’s not their job to make it right. It’s up to the typesetter (web browser, WYSIWYG program, printer, etc) to make it look right.

[Gary_Robson]

@Sailboat

Meh. We’ve done this many times. Two spaces is an archaic convention, automatically removed by some (not all) some applications, one of which is the current SDMB software.

The only thing “two spaces” have going is they make things much easier to read, even in proportional fonts.

Everyone I work with can spot a single space usage, even lost in the middle of page after page of dense, boring government text – they catch all cases where I miss that second space.

The SDMB software does not remove the double spaces. Your Web browser does. Every single Web browser.

If two spaces made things easier to read, then why is every single book, magazine, web site, and newspaper done with one space?

@elfkin477

I give up, how is your macro removing blank lines? I have written myself various macros, but I haven’t stumbled across anything that will reduce 2-3 blank lines to one (it’s easy to add them with a macro, but remove them?), which would be pretty damn useful with some of the stories I get.

The order of things is important!

First, globally replace “^w^p” with “^p”. This will remove all whitespace (spaces & tabs) from the beginning of every paragraph. Then replace “^p^p” with “^p”. This removes single blank lines between paragraphs, but still leaves a blank line where there were two of them. Repeat the second step to remove those.

[Really_Not_All_That_Bright]

@Gary "Wombat" Robson

If two spaces made things easier to read, then why is every single book, magazine, web site, and newspaper done with one space?

To save space.

Newspapers and magazines do lots of things which make their text harder to read - segments of something other than black text on a white background, for example.

[Claverhouse]

Two. Always and automatically. Could I enforce it on html I would. One space is vulgar, and it’s nice to drive people insane if they care so deeply.

[Colibri]

@Really_Not_All_That_Bright

To save space.

No. Newspapers and magazines may strive for that (they typically use AP style), but books by and large do not (they typically use Chicago style, which doesn’t necessarily serve to conserve space). Chicago style, as cited above, uses one space.

[Siam_Sam]

Oh God, not this question again. Seems once a month.

Only bad people do two spaces.

[guizot]

@Alessan

Yes, yes, a thousand times yes. Spaces used for formatting make my computer-assisted translation software cry.

Tell your software to meet me in the bar, where we’ll commiserate together.

[elfkin477]

@Gary "Wombat" Robson

The SDMB software does not remove the double spaces. Your Web browser does. Every single Web browser.

If two spaces made things easier to read, then why is every single book, magazine, web site, and newspaper done with one space?

The order of things is important!

First, globally replace “^w^p” with “^p”. This will remove all whitespace (spaces & tabs) from the beginning of every paragraph. Then replace “^p^p” with “^p”. This removes single blank lines between paragraphs, but still leaves a blank line where there were two of them. Repeat the second step to remove those.

Okay, this is awesome. I named my new copy of this macro “Whiteout” I have a feeling I’ll have to run another macro (“Unchop,” for docs formatted to 70 characters/line) to remove hard linebreaks from some of the docs first, but that’s a lot better than removing all the extra linebreaks manually. Thanks a lot!

[Hal_Briston]

I learned to use two in grade school, and like all the other outdated bits of idiocy from that time, I left it behind. One space for me, thanks.

[CanvasShoes]

I don’t care if word processing programs such as MS Word have made two spaces supposedly “obsolete”. Type or MS Word, a document still LOOKS better with two spaces. White space is a good thing. I don’t get the hatred for the two-space, other than the whole “you old geezers, that was then, this is now” mentality. One space is not more “modern” or whatever, and it certainly looks less aesthetically pleasing than two.

[Jormungandr]

I’m a self-taught typist who started on an used Selectric. I used one space on it and continue to do so on computers now.

[Hal_Briston]

@CanvasShoes

One space … certainly looks less aesthetically pleasing than two.

We’ll have to agree to disagree on that. Every time I come across a two-spaced story, I’m distracted by how aesthetically unappealing it looks.

[elmwood]

Damn, these one space two space threads are on what seems like every other message board lately.

I use two, because in my eyes it better distinguishes individual paragraphs. I also use old-school plain text email, where it makes more sense. If you use one or two, though, I don’t care.

A nerdy compromise would be to use the Unicode space-and-a-half character. Like what I did in this post.

[pulykamell]

@CanvasShoes

One space is not more “modern” or whatever, and it certainly looks less aesthetically pleasing than two.

It looks like rivers of space to me. The terminal punctuation mark already breaks the space between sentences, and a single space is all that is necessary. Any more, and it causes me to visually “hiccup” between sentences.

Wikipedia on sentence spacing:

The Complete Manual on Typography (2003) states that “The typewriter tradition of separating sentences with two word spaces after a period has no place in typesetting” and the single space is “standard typographic practice”.[41] The Elements of Typographic Style (2004) advocates a single space between sentences, noting that “your typing as well as your typesetting will benefit from unlearning this quaint [double spacing] Victorian habit.”[9]

David Jury’s book, About Face: Reviving the Rules of Typography (2004)—published in Switzerland—clarifies the contemporary typographic position on sentence spacing:
Word spaces, preceding or following punctuation, should be optically adjusted to appear to be of the same value as a standard word space. If a standard word space is inserted after a full point or a comma, then, optically, this produces a space of up to 50% wider than that of other word spaces within a line of type. This is because these punctuation marks carry space above them, which, when added to the adjacent standard word spaces, combines to create a visually larger space. Some argue that the “additional” space after a comma and full point serves as a “pause signal” for the reader. But this is unnecessary (and visually disruptive) since the pause signal is provided by the punctuation mark itself.[42]

As for the legibility issue, there do not seem to be any conclusive studies. Wikipedia references this:

Direct studies include those by Loh, Branch, Shewanown, and Ali (2002), Clinton, Branch, Holschuh, and Shewanown (2003) and Ni, Branch and Chen (2004) with inconclusive results favoring single or double spacing.[102] The 2002 study tested participants’ reading speed for single and double sentence spaced passages of on-screen text. The authors stated that “the ‘double space group’ consistently took longer time to finish than the ‘single space’ group”, but concluded that “there was not enough evidence to suggest that a significant difference exists”.

However, there is also this:

A widespread observation is that increased sentence spacing creates “rivers”[109] or “holes”[110] within text, making it visually unattractive, distracting, and difficult to locate the end of sentences.[111] Comprehensive works on typography describe the negative effect on readability caused by inconsistent spacing,[112] supported in a 1981 study which found that “comprehension was significantly less accurate with the river condition.”[113] Another 1981 study on cathode ray tube (CRT) displays concluded that “more densely packed text is read more efficiently … than is more loosely packed text.”[114] This conclusion is supported in other works as well.[112]

[Siam_Sam]

@Hal_Briston

We’ll have to agree to disagree on that. Every time I come across a two-spaced story, I’m distracted by how aesthetically unappealing it looks.

Ditto.

[CanvasShoes]

@Siam_Sam

Ditto.

Yeah. Guess so.

[Inner_Stickler]

@Silvorange

I’m a one-spacer because it never occurred to me to use two. I have no office skills, though, so I don’t know another way to indent.

Have you heard of Tab?

I didn’t know 22 counted as an old fogey but sign me up for the retirement center, I guess. It’s such a weird thing to get pissed off about but if that’s what floats your boat. Just don’t expect me to cater to your preferences.

[Sailboat]

@MobiusStripes

You’ve been reading SDMB, and most Internet-based things, with once space for the last decade or so. On the plus side, it means you don’t have to change your habits!

And it’s recognizably slightly harder to read than text with two spaces, inthesamewaytextwithnospaces is harder, but we put up with it.

This is because these punctuation marks carry space above them, which, when added to the adjacent standard word spaces, combines to create a visually larger space.

What this should say is “punctuation marks are supposed to carry space above them, but typographic design is a fading art, and many do not carry enough such space to function properly.”

[rbroome]

@a35362

Please read this article from Slate first.

Then, respond to the poll.

I took a typing class the summer before I started high school. We were taught to put two spaces after the period at the end of the sentence (as well as after colons). This guy claims that that is a holdover from the '70s and has to do with typewriters using monospaced type and is completely unnecessary now and we should FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, STOP DOING IT ALREADY (sorry, he seems a little emotional about the topic).

So what do you say?

read a book.
seriously.
a properly typeset book has one space after the period.
I guess it is a matter of personal choice whether your computer-generated text should look like a professional publication or a 70’s era typing class.
It is up to the author and what message is sent by the look of the document.

When I took typing several decades ago, 2 spaces were the rule. If I ever use a typewriter again, that is what I will do.

[Ludovic]

@pulykamell

The terminal punctuation mark already breaks the space between sentences, and a single space is all that is necessary. Any more, and it causes me to visually “hiccup” between sentences.

If you don’t pause between sentences, they shouldn’t really be separate sentences.

I just now realized why I use so many paragraphs on message boards. It’s because it’s harder to separate sentences that don’t have two spaces between them, so ideas need to be that much more related to each other in order to justify grouping them together so closely.

For instance, if I were typing this out in a medium which allowed for double spacing, this post would probably have been two, possibly only one, paragraphs long. Who’s saving space now?