Should we use one space or two after a period?

[Bridget_Burke]

@rbroome

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.

Well, some people like to follow the “rules” about upper & lower case letters. And skipping a space between paragraphs.

Text ignoring those rules definitely sends a “message.”

[Gary_Robson]

@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.

You’re missing the point. Nobody is saying that the one-space convention is “modern.” It has always been the standard in professionally-typeset materials.

Books, newspapers, magazines, and even this here newfangled Internet thing all use one space following end of sentence punctuation. They always have.

[Enderw24]

@Really_Not_All_That_Bright

Two. It’s how I learned to type. It’s not a holdover from the 70s, incidentally; I learned to type in WYSIWIG word processors in the early 90s which still used monospace fonts.

@Bridget_Burke

I mostly use two spaces out of habit. I learned on a manual typewriter back in the 60’s. And still used 2 spaces in the early 70’s on an IBM Executive typewriter–with proportional spacing. And, even later, when I used an IBM Selectric Composer for a hippie newspaper.

@elmwood

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.

Quoted for the ironicallinessitudes.

[BigT]

The reason it bugs me is specific to this message board. We have a citation claiming that experts say one space is correct, and two is incorrect. We have no counter citations. And yet we still have people claiming that their way is right.

To me, it’s the same as someone coming into GQ and claiming the moon landings were a hoax. It’s just frustrating when people choose to remain willfully ignorant.

If you do it out of habit, I don’t have a problem with it. But to do it because you know what’s right when all the evidence points the other way is just another form of woo.

[Musicat]

@BigT

The reason it bugs me is specific to this message board. We have a citation claiming that experts say one space is correct, and two is incorrect. We have no counter citations. And yet we still have people claiming that their way is right.

To me, it’s the same as someone coming into GQ and claiming the moon landings were a hoax. It’s just frustrating when people choose to remain willfully ignorant.

If you do it out of habit, I don’t have a problem with it. But to do it because you know what’s right when all the evidence points the other way is just another form of woo.

Wrong on every count. No one’s claiming that one way is right, but they prefer it. Comparing personal taste differences in artistic dimensions to irrational hoax beliefs is ridiculous.

If enough people write one way or another long enough, it will become the standard, and experts will teach that. This is not a moral right-or-wrong issue.

[Death_of_Rats]

This single space thing is just a fad. it will blow over soon and all you youngin’s will go back to doing it the RIGHT way.

[Cheesesteak]

@BigT

The reason it bugs me is specific to this message board. We have a citation claiming that experts say one space is correct, and two is incorrect. We have no counter citations. And yet we still have people claiming that their way is right.

That’s just, like, your opinion, man.

One or two spaces is an aesthetic choice, whether you prefer the look of one or two spaces. If tons of people prefer two spaces, then it’s just as valid a preference as the one space the experts prefer. I can disagree with experts and drink red wine with fish and I can think that that modern art paintings that are one solid field of color are just stupid. I can disagree with experts and think that two spaces works just fine.

[Musicat]

@Cheesesteak

I can disagree with experts and think that two spaces works just fine.

And us two-spacers gotta stick together.

But red wine with fish?

[Cheesesteak]

@Musicat

But red wine with fish?

Purely hypothetical example, I assure you. The giant single color “masterpieces”, not hypothetical. Wow… it’s… red.

[Skammer]

I learned 2 spaces back when I took typing class in the early eighties. I try to just do one space now but it’s a hard habit to break.

[Le_Ministre_de_l_au-dela]

Two spaces after a period.

I’m actually very tired of having to adapt my behaviour to the computer - lists which are alphabetized by first name, or where ‘The Incredibles’ is filed under ‘T’, people bitching at me for typing correctly, lists that go 1, 11, 12, 2, 3 unless I write my numbers as 01, 02, 03 etc. are all things that piss me off about computers and the mindset that some people have when using them.

[Gary_Robson]

@Death_of_Rats

This single space thing is just a fad. it will blow over soon and all you youngin’s will go back to doing it the RIGHT way.

I know you’re joking, and I feel like I’m repeating the same thing over and over, but nobody appears to be noticing when I make this point:

It’s the two-space thing that’s a fad. Single spaces at the end of a sentence were the standard long before two spaces, and it’s what all the style guides call for once again. Gutenberg used proportionally-spaced type, and that’s what books, magazines, newspapers, and the Web use now. For a stretch in the middle there, an accommodation was made for typewriters with monospaced type, and people who took typing classes in the “old days” (but never went on to study typography) learned two spaces. Some of them became teachers and are teaching two spaces, blissfully unaware that it’s not what the publishing world uses.

[Musicat]

@Gary "Wombat" Robson

For a stretch in the middle there, an accommodation was made for typewriters with monospaced type,…

Now there’s something I don’t understand. Monospaced type, by its very definition, gives the same width for every character. “M” and “W” get squeezed, “i” and “l” get expanded to fill the single-width space.

So a monospaced font would provide a wider space for a single character space than a proportional font would. Why would the rule be to double that already-wide space to compensate? I would think the rule for fixed-width typewriters would be the opposite (except there isn’t any option for a half space in traditional typewriters).

It seems to me (don’t have a link, and I could be wrong) that the reason typing classes specified double spaces after a period was for appearance sake. If so, then we should be triple spacing for proportional fonts to preserve the same “extra-spacing” appearance, since the proportional font spaces are extremely narrow.

[Gary_Robson]

@Musicat

So a monospaced font would provide a wider space for a single character space than a proportional font would. Why would the rule be to double that already-wide space to compensate?

I do not know. Perhaps to differentiate the spacing after an end-of-sentence period from the spacing after an abbreviation’s period? I always felt that if they just placed the period at the left of its “block” in a monospaced font instead of centering it, that would effectively produce a space-and-a-half after the period on a typewriter.