50+ Hilarious Memes That Moms Will Love

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Even though I now write on a computer, my scripts appear in courier font. I was taught to double-space lines to make editing easier and to type on 8. I had never heard of only putting one space after a period until that day, when I asked my older colleagues, who are 41 years old and 57, they said they have always only put one space after a period.

When I finish an alphabet font I spend over 40 hours kerning the font. The standardization of 2 spaces after a period was meant to separate the ideas of two sentences. My boss demands we use 1 space in all hard correspondence yes, due to malpractice issues in this litigious society, we still keep hard files. A typewriter, not a computer.

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Before I start, I should mention that I am over 40. I learned to type in 1987 on an IBM Selectric typewriter. A typewriter, not a computer. We had those, but they had big, actually floppy disks and honest to God, no one had any idea what to do with them. My semester of typing remains one of the most valuable classes I ever took in high school — I can still dazzle small children with my ability to make words appear on a screen by just hysterically wiggling my fingers on the keyboard. Here it is: Unless you are typing on an actual typewriter, you no longer have to put two spaces after a period. Or a question mark. Or an exclamation point. The rule applies to all end punctuation. We needed that extra space between sentences to make it easier to see the beginning of new sentences. Word processors and computers and everything that is not a very old typewriter use mostly , which adjust spacing to the size of the letter. But these articles are not reaching everyone, probably because for many of us who learned to type before computers, it was hammered into our heads over and over and OVER again to use two spaces. It takes a long time to unlearn that. When you know better, you do better. See my follow-up post, written two months later…. For the most part, this site is about teaching. So if you happened upon this article AND you have an interest in education, you need to stick around, baby. I look forward to getting to know you better! Oh man do I feel old! I always thought I was being sneaky when I used single spaces after a sentence in a paper I was too wordy for the APA page limit, blowing my mind here! I JUST PUT 2 SPACES EVEN THOUGH I WAS TRYING NOT TO!!!! And I did it with my thumbs on my phone!!! How long does it take to change a 40 year habit? At what age do you get grandfathered in to forgiveness for extra space? Other readers also informed me that in the legal world, two spaces is still the norm. Thanks for this — I can add engineering to the list of industries that have dug in their heels on two spaces law and academia were given to me a few days ago. I think there are two possibilities. If I was proofreading this sentence, I would have suggested removing the words that make me sound like an asshole. I am not the first person to say this here, but two spaces makes more sense because it visually denotes the end of a sentence. Try reading a paragraph in a piece of technical literature where the sentences are single-spaced, and then the same paragraph double-spaced. The double-spaced paragraph is FAR easier to read. As someone who appreciates practicality, ease of intaking information the most basic purpose of reading is more important to me than the percieved aesthetics which change from person to person anyway. Double-spacing sentences just simply makes more sense. Actually, a period and one space visually denote the end of the sentence. I emailed APA about this. Here is my email and their response: Oh powers-that-be, WHY did you return to the typewriter way of doing things? Two spaces after a period does NOT improve readability; it creates rivers of white space that are most annoying. I read theses and dissertations for a living and was pleased that APA, along with the Chicago Style Guide, recommended the use of only one space after a period. Much to my chagrin, I see that you have backtracked on that. I cannot be the only person to contact you about this. Walters, Your wish was granted in August 2009, when the second printing of the APA Publication Manual 6th ed. A single space is always correct, and may be used in both draft and final manuscripts. Hope this helps, Ms. Jeff Hume-PratuchEditorial SupervisorAPA Journals I agree, although I was a English and Business major, it was drilled into out heads two spaces after period at end of sentence. I went back to college at the old age of 45, rules of English, APA flatting were still two spaces. I find sentences with one space difficult to read, sentences running together. My belief is the one space trend came about because of laziness, not for any other reason. Our country is doomed. Call me mulishly opposed to being dragged into the future, but as a man in his thirties who learned on the last generation of typewriters and the first wave of personal computers, I will cling to this forever. Yes, I text with two spaces. Early home printers produced type in a very limited selection of fonts and styles, not much more refined than the typewriter five-option dot matrix? Fun stuff , and these were equally helped by the second space. But I suppose I could make any number of these arguments and still say nothing real to justify my obstinant nature. I enjoyed the above link claiming it is a money-saving grab by the publishing industry. I shall delightfully cast them as villains, now, and myself the pedantic, reluctant freedom fighter. It slows down the speed of reading very slightly allowing the reader to absorb the sentence info better. It is psychological but valid. Also, a serif font is easier to read, instead I increasingly see non-serif fonts used for text. The serifs keep your eye on the word much easier than the non-serif like the font used in this blog. The font looks modern but has no advantage. I have been told that sans-serif fonts are much easier to read for people with dyslexia. So for some people, serif fonts are not easier to read. I find it somewhat irritating that one is so irritated by two spaces after a period. After typing for the better part of 30 years, hitting the space bar two spaces after typing a period is pure muscle memory. As an aside, I assume you are aware that there are, in fact, mono-spaced fonts in the computer world too. Additionally, there are STILL reasons one might want to use mono-spaced fonts e. BTW — I did read your other article…but I still think your irritation is a bit overboard. I must agree with ERSAZT. I find your irritation over an extra space irritating enough to point out that it is evidence the author is OLD. Those sentence structures make me cringe and note the author is not professional. I would never, however, communicate i find that irritating, nor imply you do would structure a sentence that way because you are under 10 years. I found this so amusing. Yet it appears that everyone that used it here spaced only once. Where would a wanna-be writer find all the rules in one spot? BTW, I obviously am over 40 took typing in high-school too! I also agree with ERSATZ — way too much fuss over how a person chooses to use a little white space. Hardly anyone knows how to use white space to arrange words in pleasing and easy-to-read format. Enjoyed it so much that I registered just so I could reply. After that I was a journalism student in college, occasionally enjoying the luxury of using an IBM Selectric. I was taught to double-space lines to make editing easier and to type on 8. In 1986 I bought a Macintosh and have made my living as a graphic artist and typesetter. I always assumed that double-spacers came from a legal background, which explained why they needed a little extra help to recognize the end of a sentence. Two spaces make me crazy, but for good reason. When learning to use a typewriter we all were told to use 2 spaces. That was correct for the typewriter. It was correct because the font on your typewriter was monospaced. Each letter took up as much space as any other letter, like a i or a w. Our eye needed the 2 spaces to see where one sentence ended and the next started. When we moved on to computers this is no longer needed. In fact it makes the copy harder to read. I design fonts at Outside the Line. When I finish an alphabet font I spend over 40 hours kerning the font. Kerning adjusts the space between individual letters such as a combination of AWA. This looks nice here because a diligent type designed kerned this font. So now everybody lose the 2 spaces! I fear that the design rule of going to one space is too great a bow to the culture of increasingly succinct communication as well as perhaps not recognizing ergonomics. My boss demands we use 1 space in all hard correspondence yes, due to malpractice issues in this litigious society, we still keep hard files. Our highly qualified and shared admin. We get the premise. This article is being passed around our group today for further discussion. Thanks for adding fuel to the fire. And I like my double spaces. Number one is that the automatic spacing after a period in word processing software does not always clearly define the end of a sentence, especially when it is being read on a low resolution device like a phone screen. On top of that, it is really difficult to distinguish between a comma and a period in the font of the reply window so that extra space adds a degree of readability to the text. Secondly, it is an accepted fact in the field of technical writing that generous use of white space improves readability and comprehension. If that extra space adds even one iota of readability of a manual of instruction in the emergency procedures of a nuclear generation plant, I want it to be there and I think you do too. I learned to type in 1962, and there certainly were no proportionally spacing machines in my high school typing class room. My thumb bounces twice on the space bar without any input from my brain. Neuro-scientists might call this a spinal reflex. It was formal looking and quite frankly when I see a single space after a period, I think you are uneducated and it looks sloppy! I will never stop doing what I was taught! Plus, all these short cuts that is being taught in language is quite scary! BTW, OMG, LMAO, etc. Yes kids now a days do not know how to sign off with their name in cursive! That folks just shows that whoever wrote this article is flowing with the changes of times! I will not conform to that! If you notice, I used double spaces after each period! IT JUST LOOKS BETTER! THis is a solution without a problem. A PhD student who needed a dissertation came up with this dumbass idea and convinced a few people to go along trying for a seat at the cool kids table. It was called the IBM Executive. I agree with you and disagree with the writer of this article. Yes, caller id lets us know a little bit about who is calling but not always. The id is usually the name who the person who pays for the phone service. Typewriters were what changed the rules. And it is not necessary to type two spaces to get a period on a smart phone. The rule of typesetting that predates typewriters by 300 years says that the space between sentences should be larger than the space between words. See , an article written by someone who actually looked at historical typesetting guides to verify whether typewriters changed the rules. Typing two spaces after a period is simply the exercise of the existing rules when using a typewriter. More modern technology actually makes things even worse because computers have a really hard time figuring out whether to display all the spaces present in a chunk of text, and an equally hard time automatically determining appropriate spacing based on context. So this begs the question where you got your information from. Are you drawing your own conclusions based on your experience or have you actually done research into what is the preferred method, both aesthetically and psychologically? For centuries predominantly one space was used after periods. Also, I can tell you that when I see a double space, my focus heightens unnecessarily. This means I experience subtle interruptions after every period, which is actually an extra strain and diminishes reading. The authority would be real-world typesetting guides, especially those that pre-date the typewriter. Despite your claims to the contrary, the standard was to have a larger space between sentences than between words. See for a review of what the actual typesetting standards really are and were. There were multiple kinds of spaces, each with a different width. Spacing was almost always tweaked to justify the text. And finally, the rule you are implying, that sentences had no more distance between them than between words, is false. For centuries, the rule was to put a greater distance between sentences than between words, from 1. The main point on the long-winded Heraclitean site boils down to we should go back some 75 or 300 years ago to extra space following punc and that it was publishers who pushed for whittling the space in a move to save resources. As if that were a bad thing. In the quest for sustainability alone, we should eliminate double word spaces. Well, you are hearing a bout it now, from yet another source. I am a Librarian, have been since the early seventies. The double space, the slightly larger white space does, indeed, clearly clue the reader to the end of the sentence, and it makes reading faster and more comprehensive. I am more likely to be hiring a lot of you, and I want clear, easily understood writing skills. I totally agree with you. Besides the fact that my fingers and thumb automatically hit the space bar twice at the end of a sentence, my eyes welcome the extra space that signals my feeble brain that the end of a sentence is at hand. Thanks for your comment. Lets just say that 40 is a ways back and leave it at that. Perhaps my typing teacher, was not as given to OCD as yours. They had learned it that way in typing and they had no plans to change. Fortunately all three of them have long since retired. The transition from Underwood, to IBM selectric, to Vax to PC has many strange rituals in its wake. Now where did I put my sliderule? You just me brought back with scary visions from my typing classes in middle school. I will say though, these courses were invaluable to me know I can type on the computer pretty much without every needing to look down. Thank you for pointing out the one vs. Now that I know the update I will implement immediately. Regarding using you as a source for educational purposes, I definitely see how your site can work. The reason we use two spaces is readability. Even though computers use proportionally spaced typefaces, using two spaces makes your text easier to read. Your mission when you publish a document is to make it as readable as possible. I just found this article and read the follow-up article as well. I am not here to argue typography. I will leave that to those who are expert in that field. To me, it is a non-issue, unlike the Oxford comma, for which I will argue in favor of using all day long. What I find even more disconcerting is the amount of intellectual snobbery present in the comments. Why is it that so many of those people commenting are so confident that only their opinions are correct? Yes, standards change, hence the constant debate over the Oxford comma, but most changes such as these take place fairly naturally over time. The use of two spaces after end punctuation is still appropriate, like the Oxford comma, in some circumstances and not necessarily in others. The argument that a capital letter signifies the beginning of a new sentence has merit, but for we geriatrics who cannot always see well enough to differentiate between a comma and a period, a capital letter may not be a sufficient signal that a new sentence has begun. Actually Jenniefer I think the point is being completely missed on why you should think ha! First, I believe that typeface and font design is completely subjective, and up to the designer and user of it. So how can any one suggest a modification of spacing on a line of copy is just plain wrong? In reality though the reason why in most cases you should refrain from two spaces is when the line breaks and could cause a new line to start with a space. That of course looks odd. Like a false start of a new paragraph. And if some one else is going to flow your copy on to a page using A page layout tool, then you would be causing extra work for them as they will have to remove the spaces, so they can has the control they need to design the page. So, in school, when they type for assignments and someone points out, double-space after a period. They had no idea. This is just a symptom of a larger problem — a generation doomed due to its narcissism and absolutely unshakeable faith that facility with technology is the same thing as a facility with language and critical thinking. We all have a vital part to play in the scheme of life. The result — bullshit like this about double spacing. I read something similar recently about no one uses Times New Roman font anymore. All of this is distraction and the triumph of surface over substance. In other words, what? When you press them on it, they tend to cite their aesthetic sensibilities. Well, I like two spaces. Now, try again to give me a valid reason to stop using two spaces. My work still uses 2 spaces and it drives me crazy! I learned typing on a manual typewriter in the 80s but with the advent of computers almost all businesses and my university profs switched to 1 space. Sorry it upsets you so. Yes, I learned to type pre-computer but NOTHING I type even looks right unless there are two spaces there. There is value in retaining older ways, such as teaching cursive writing so students can read documents before the use of typewriters. Good luck with your issues. As an English major, I disagree. The standardization of 2 spaces after a period was meant to separate the ideas of two sentences. This is because a period can be used within one. The a single space was used allowing the continuation of the single idea. The double space is used as a delineation between the sentence vs. See what I did there? I believe the forgotten delineation is from the lack of educational awareness, in the last few generations, making it a pseudo standard; as no one truly has to write in grade school anymore. This has made the grammar output of the younger generations pitiful in comparison to the older. Ask your younger generation what a semi-colon is for. It makes me shudder to think their answer. I JUST found this out today while practicing on a typing program I want my 13 year old to learn on. My one question is. I learned as a 9th grader in school…. I think this discussion is more than aesthetics. It is about style, readability, acceptable standards, and, yes, technology. As a writer, reader, print publisher and web publisher, there are many, many considerations that go into what is seen on the screen and the page. I usually opt for whatever helps people to understand each other. To use what actually aids in comprehension. I just walked over to the study to ask my wife, who was born and raised in France, about them using a space before the punctuation. She told me that it is an aesthetic value of clarity and has nothing to do with grammar. Evidently nothing looks worse than a word ending with a w or m followed by an exclamation mark. But it comes down to two main points- one historical, and the other aesthetic. His historical point is wrong. See: And: As for the aesthetic argument, I also disagree. It has been written elsewhere see, e. I believe that for non-justified alignment left aligned , double spaces look better. Every sentence stands out as separate. It also helps clarify through a defined rule- without having to use or understand the context- when a period ends a sentence, and when it just appears as part of a word. I do agree that double spacing can be bad looking if a paragraph uses justified alignment. This is because each space can ordinarily be expanded by justifying, and so doubling spaces can lead to huge islands. It also increase the odds that a word will be pushed off to the next line, which will have the effect of increasing the size of all spaces, including the double spaces. This effect is most harmful when the width of a line of text is small, like in multi-column newspaper-style text. Most magazines and books are now justified-aligned, so double spacing is probably not appropriate for them. A final note- the one thing that is absolutely, always wrong, is being inconsistent with spacing. Double space or single space, but at least choose one. I will think this over and might possibly have something smarter to say than dayum in the morning. Have a good night! Although your sources are quite correct, I still passionately disagree with you. What you will see however are wide gaps in between words in order to justify text. Remember that with letterpress printing you have a lot less control over the spacing of your text—both word spacing as well as letter spacing. You will see typography is a lot less restricted, particularly in the early type printing days where the Venetian typefaces were briefly used. These typefaces followed the conventions of chirographic texts. Within 50 years the Garalde style is introduced and at this point typefaces because less calligraphic and more mechanical. We enter the Renaissance, which is a period of rational thinking and so you will see a lot of standardization in this period. For example, whereas the proportions of the letters in the Venetian models followed the scripts that were used before letter printing and thus featured a lot of variety in width look at the wide H for example and a low x-height, in the Garalde models you see particularly the uppercase letters become much more consistent in width. Eventually we get to the Transitional style, which is even more mechanical, features more details and has a higher contrast because technological advances allow this to happen. In typefaces like Romain du Roi you can see there is a tendency to design typefaces according to geometric rules. I have to confess here that the double space can often be seen in this period, in France at least. The French still have a few specific typographic practices which deviate from the general standardization though, so it might not be fair to base our typographic practices on what the French do. However, during this time the French created a campaign to enforce their ideals around typography and this was in fact the very reason Romain du Roi was designed, so France could join the fun the Italians, Dutch and English were already having. During the Baroque there was quite a lot of typographic experimentation. Typefaces like Baskerville were initially criticized for their severe contrast which diminished the reading experience. People got used to it though, and this Transitional style with vertical weight distribution and high contrast is still prevalent today. In fact, most modern book typefaces tend to mix aspects of the Garalde and Transitional styles. After the Transitional style the experimentation continued and the contrast was raised even further. Thus the Didone style was created. Often an optical variant with less contrast was used, or a typeface like Baskerville, which works very well with Didone typefaces. Still, I would prefer not to read a whole book set in Baskerville. Eventually we enter into a period of industrialization and this is where you will see a regress in typography. As I mentioned technological advances allowed for more typographic experimentation and expression. With the industrialization marketing became prominent and so there was a need for simpler but stronger typographic expression. Thus the grotesque sans serif was created. They went against aesthetic ideals. This is also when the Egyptienne came to be, which we now tend to refer to as slab serif. With the Egyptienne came the Clarendon style, and this is where you see a regress in book typography. Everything had to be printed fast and in big quantities. Here you see a lot of spacing issues and horrible justification choices. It is said that justified text diminishes the reading experience and this is invariably true to at least a minimal extent. Everything you do which adds more variety to the spacing will diminish typography. W ould yo us ay th is tex t is com forta ble to read? There is no good argument to use it and there are great arguments against it. Arguments on functionality, mostly. Some mention the double space is necessary to divide sentences, but this is absolutely ludicrous. This is the very reason the use of uppercase letters at the beginning of a sentence became standardized. How many different principles do you want to add to distinguish between sentences? At one point is it enough? It took centuries to define what works best. Without a doubt you will find the use of double spaces frequently throughout history, but there is a reason it never became standardized. It goes against the principles of proper typography. The point is not that the single space has been standardized for centuries, but that there is a need for standardization. They adopted the practice of proportional fonts into monospace fonts, rather than the other way around. It says a WIDER space. NOT a double space. Have you ever heard of the en-dash and em-dash? Whereas we incorrectly use hyphens for just about everything, the hyphen is only meant to hyphenate words or to combine words. The only exception I can think of is to divide the numbers in a date notation. To signify a range in numbers or a correlation between two locations an en-dash should be used and to signify a sentence within a sentence, one would have to use the em-dash. Em-dashes often tend to be too obtrusive. Some typefaces feature shorter or thinner em-dashes. If your typeface features a rather obtrusive em-dash, it may be best to use an en-dash instead and use half spaces around it. Does that make a single space the preferred practice? Do you find that to be logical? Recent or not, it has become standardized. The discussion might stop there, especially after giving all the reasons for why it has been standardized. Earlier printers had advice to deal with the situations where the holes became too numerous or looked bad. Historically there have been a lot of typographic disasters which nevertheless were common practice. Sometimes a new technology comes along which imposes certain restrictions on us and so there is a temporary fallback, but as technology improves the typographic sophistication returns. I talk with typographers and type designers regularly and I think there are very few who would argue for double spaces, especially considering historically one and a half space was preferred and not a double space. These are not the kind of people who blindly follow standards; these are the people who help set the standards. We typographers are the ones making the rules on typography. Let me close by repeating one sentiment. Not only was the double space never standardized or used predominantly in any historical period, but in fact historically the preferred space was around the width of the letter M. A double space is two Ns, which is simply too big. Do you really need more than that? And regardless of historical use, the fact is that most of us consider the handling of double spaces to be aesthetically displeasing and unprofessional. In other words, we have more or less standardized the single space, so stop being a rebel for the sake of it. You can convince me to leave out the space after a period, mainly because the computer makes it look okay. See I do it too. And if you are using a French word-processor program, it will automatically put the spaces before a colon, a semi-colon, an exclamation point, a question mark, and a quote mark. Anyhow the computer works it out. Pretty much all style guides now say single space after a paragraph is the way to go now. There are two separate debates: the one about whether people should be continuing to press the space bar once or twice in the age of digital fonts, and whether we actually want to use much longer spaces after the ends of sentences than we do between words. In the former, pretty much the entire publishing industry is agreed that only one space is the way to go. I hate to admit it and I will deny it if anyone says I admitted it! However, I find it hard to find the end of a sentence in typed material nowadays. Often when I read Time magazine for example, I zing past the end of the sentence, forcing me to reread in order to figure out what is going on. I blame it on my aging eyes. Bring back the two spaces! For me, this is an accessibility issue. Also, I feel you on the aging eyes thing: I have 4 separate pairs of reading glasses! I was probably out of college a decade before that happened. You may find that many people still do it because they were taught it during typing class. After that, we were on our own. Well, this is interesting, because ideally I think we should use 1,5 space after a period. I have to wonder if, as technology advances, we will reintroduce the 1,5 space. Try as you might, you will NOT convince me to stop using double spaces between sentences. Some people thought it was pretty funny. I love ellipses and emphasizing with CAPS! And I just read that post and I most definitely approve of the word punctuationally. So the irritation is just aesthetic. I can have fun with formatting. That first one was shouted and the second one was whispered…. Language is such an important tool and we should use it with joy. And I worship them. Nice talking to you — both of your sites look fantastic. I will be visiting. I hope you come back here, too! The irritation for me is that there is an increased sense of awareness at the end of a sentence when a double space has been utilized. Good typography is invisible. I feel the discussion could actually end there. It simply diminishes the reading experience even if extra spaces would divide things more clearly. Typography is about the flow of things, not about division. I absolutely love the use of em-dashes and semicolons, but the em-dash is actually a very obtrusive element. Readers are too impatient, We have to grab them and keep them. Still, I do have to fight to stay loose. I want it to be right! Many of us use abbreviations in our writing. My iphone does that and its super annoying. Burn the extra calories pressing the space bar twice. It CAN be done, but then the type designers need to address this and technology needs to advance a bit further. With OpenType functionality you can add a lot of advanced features in your typeface which the end user can utilize. OT functionality is also slowly being implemented into websites, but it will take a while before it becomes standardized in our browsers or on our computers. I write for a living and few things make me angrier than one space after a sentence. Using one space after the period makes all of the sentence bleed together. For a quick reader, two spaces helps distinguish between a comma signifying a pause vs. It is similar to the way that street signs are designed differently so that you know the meaning without ever reading them. STOP signs are a red hexagon. Yield signs are yellow triangles. To distinguish between sentences we use capital letters which were initially not used in combination with lowercase but it became practice to distinguish between sentences more , a period AND a space. And still you need more to distinguish? If I apply this to your traffic sign analogy, I suppose we would be building colorful fences around traffic signs to emphasize that a traffic sign is there. This is a moment of increased awareness of the typography while good typography should be invisible. Look at my previous posts on this page for elaborate explanations. Which is exactly why we need more space after a sentence than between words: there SHOULD be a slight pause between sentences! When reading aloud, I find I will miss the slight pause that should be there, continuing to the next sentence too quickly. When reading quickly, the same thing happens, and I find I have to go back and re-read at least part of the sentence to understand what it says before going on. It slows me down greatly and makes it much more difficult to comprehend the text well. Ironically enough, I find it most problematic online when reading html which strips out double spaces , only partially because I am often scanning quickly online. That looks okay too. But most of my students pay little to no attention to how many spaces they sue between sentences. I routinely get essays from about half my students that have a variable number of spaces between sentences, sometimes as many as four, but often three. That attitude comes from not really having any investment in their writing beyond what grade it earns, and they know through experience that most English teachers are too busy to spend much, if any, time fussing with them over typography, nor to hold them accountable for it in the form of a grade. So they learn not to care about it. The basic purpose of all spelling, punctuation and typographic rules is to promote clarity of communication by avoiding confusion and ambiguity. So, why the overbearing, scolding tone? I would argue, though, that certain conventions serve a greater purpose than simple clarity. After years of teaching English and professional work as a copy editor, I can tell you most errors I marked caused zero confusion in terms of meaning. But when someone takes the time to get these things right, they convey more than clarity; they convey professionalism. They tell me they are a person who bothers with those kinds of details. There is a kind of kinship between people who care about the details in any given field. And sometimes people who share that particular kinship want to make a little noise. No harm intended, though. The world has way bigger problems than this. Jennifer…I think the main thing is just to be consistent with whichever choice you make. By your reasoning I may as well add three spaces because it promotes clarity of communication while keeping the meaning the same. If justified text is typographically less good due to a greater variety in spacing, then at least on a very subtle level adding two spaces after periods will have a similar effect. Besides, I submit that it DOES change meaning. The use of a semicolon, an ellipsis or an em-dash can completely change the tone of the text and actually change meaning, and so can spaces, At the very least it creates a pause, which in itself has meaning. A period might be the end of a sentence, but it might also follow initials, abbreviations, numbers, and other uses. A period followed by two spaces solves a real problem with ambiguity. This is especially useful in the modern age i. Also let me say that all this talk about typographers is nonsense. Typographers as a group have no particular opinion on the issue. That kept me laughing all the way down! As a definitely over 40, I also did typing at school, though never learnt to do the double spacing. What I was eternally grateful for though, was the decline of shorthand classes at that exact time! Was not at all passionate about such a class, so I was relieved when it was outed. I do double spaces to improve readability. Single pixel periods are not the most visible graphic conceived. As for typewriters, I never used them for anything but play. I am over 40 but have used computers since a very young age. Distinguishing between a comma and a period is easier with two spaces after a period. Over 99% of my reading is on an electronic display of some kind and find that the work of writers that use two spaces is much more readable. Early 40 column displays did not have this issue as the font was so very large. Sadly, not everyone has the same literacy level I do. HOWEVER, all this has been challenged. All your ranting just shows that you are the one behind the times. How lovely to be able to put a young whipper-snapper in her place. LOL Clearly, I am over 40. It is only a number and, hopefully, affords me some sort of respectability, at least for longevity. But I do double space after the punctuation of a sentence. The theory that placing extra spacing at the end of a sentence originated with the advent of the typewriter and its monotype spaced fonts has been around for years, but I believe it is wrong. The tradition of placing extra spacing after periods and other end-of-sentence punctuation marks is much, much older. Indeed there are examples to be found in the books of the incunabula. Bembo, published by Aldus Manutius, 1495. Although there was not a fixed practice using extra spacing after periods during the early centuries of printing, it is not difficult to find examples in every age. By the 19th century the practice was firmly established. Pick up almost any book from that era and you will find the extra spacing. So I submit that the early typists were simply following the practice that was common in their day. Whether or not it is a practice that should be continued is a separate question. Comtempory book publishers have universally abandoned the practice, and I suspect that this abandoment will continue to spread. Frankly, issues like this irk me. The main people perpetrating this myth are the 20-something college journalist students. Probably, the only style manual they have seen is the ONE manual for journalists, AP. So, then they become 2-space Nazis, trying to bully their opinion on everyone else in the world. I disagree with the author for a few reasons. Reading some of these posts, two spaces has historically been the rule far longer than any recent one-space trend. We should not change history because of technology unless it is a really big win. In this case, I think people are just becoming lazy. With more high-tech typing devices like mobile phones and tablets, people are typing with their thumbs, typing while driving bad idea or typing so quickly to get a quick message out that quality suffers. While single spaces separate words, I think double spaces should separate sentences, it reinforces that the thought sentence is complete. It helps it stand out and I think it reinforces clearer writing, clearer reading and clearer sentence construction. Also, carriage returns breaks, new lines, line feeds, or whatever should separate paragraphs, for the same reasons. These are the building blocks of written communication and they should each have their own unique separator. My wife is from Thailand, and the Thai written language has no punctuation. It also has no spaces between words, sentences or paragraphs. It just just one, constant flow of uninterrupted text. Or in Thai — itisjustoneconstantflowofuninterruptedtext — super annoying. Any direction we move closer to this even as subtle as changing double spaces to singe spaces is a move in the wrong direction! Anything else, use two spaces I say. Historically about 1,5 space was used. In this case, I think people are just becoming lazy. It closes, divides and opens. Do you require so much emphasis on the division? It creates unnecessary pauses and an increased awareness of the typography while good typography should be invisible. I would absolutely prefer not to read a whole book with double spaces, just like I would absolutely prefer not to read a book set in a Didone typeface or with too much leading or with too much letter- or word spacing and I could name more typographic principles. Do you know how they feel about it? I suppose if they thought adding spaces is desirable, it would have been standardized a long time ago. The Thai script consists of icons which are more or less the same height and width. In Latin writing we have a lot of variety in both the vertical and horizontal dimensions, so we do need to divide to make our text easier to interpret. Also, I suspect the Thai script denotes whole words and not letters. When one icon represents a whole word, there is lesser need for spaces. I still find the Thai script to be unusual though, as other Asian languages do seem to use spaces despite having icons which are the same height. In the case of those abbreviations, would you say that the completion of the sentence was already reinforced, even though the period, space, and capitalization does not denote the end of the sentence? You are dismissive of the rationales behind clearer division, but you have not provided cogent counter-reasoning. You seem to realize that the not-currently-an-option 1. FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT IS HOLY AND GOOD IN THIS WORLD — GET OVER IT!! Two spaces, plain and simple, makes it MUCH easier to read anything anyone has written. I agree that there are many more important things to worry about, and having written this post, I was surprised by the number of people who feel so strongly about sticking to two spaces. Read my lengthy comments on this page to get more insight into the matter. How do you know? The fact that 99% of contemporary books are set with a single space is evidence of that. Do we really need to cater to the business people who are only using double spaces because they grew up with the typewriter? We simply need to do proper research before we write such articles. The fact that there are many more important things going on in the world is absolutely besides the point. We all have our own professions and we all try to make progress in our fields. Whether a single or a double space is handled after a period is absolutely relevant to typographers. We are the ones who establish these conventions and some of us do research in the psychological impact of typographic practices. We are simply trying to make language more accessible. We are improving communication, which is at the core of everything else in the world. If typographic progress were irrelevant we would still be drawing stick figures on walls to communicate. Jennifer—i respect your right to use one space. I do, however, take issue with three things about your post. The first, and by far the most important, is your support of the denigration of older people. We live in an era of age discrimination. Your post, and your follow up comments, state that the reason people incorrectly in your view use two spaces after a full stop is because they are old, ignorant, and stuck in their old ways. Is this really what you want the teachers who look to you for advice to be teaching their students? As shown by many of your comments, there was no reason to link age with the use of two spaces. Second, and implied in the first, the absolutism of your article is just silly. Reference the comments above. Third, so far as i can see, the move to one space in certain quarters was based upon aesthetics. I think aesthetics are important. But, in writing, I think aesthetics—in the sense of how words appear visually on the page, whether they look pretty or not—must take second billing to the need for clear expression. As many of the commenters and their referenced sources note, the separation of sentences—complete thoughts—by two spaces and words within sentences by one space aids in understanding, clarity and readability. But to elevate aesthetics, as practiced by magazine publishers, above clear expression again seems unworthy of a person teaching pedagogy. Brief point of interest related to the age issue: in 1987, when you were learning to type on an IBM Selectric, I had already been using personal computers and word processing software to write and edit for a national publication for several years. I have not used a typewriter since except occasionally to type an envelope when printers were still not very good at it. Just because i am over 55 does not mean I am backwards or do not understand the latest technology. Thanks for taking the time to comment. I do feel genuinely sorry for having offended anyone. Being over 40 myself, I felt it was okay to poke a little fun. But I am realizing now that because technology is moving so fast, the fear of being out of touch is very real — and can have serious consequences — for anyone who might be considered of an advanced age. It has given me a lot to think about in terms of the relationship between how a message is delivered and how receptive your audience will be to hearing it. I hope to formulate what I have learned here into a lesson I can share in a later post. Thanks again for the feedback. Then there are those who are old. They grew up with certain technologies with their very specific set of restrictions and so these people created certain routines to work with those restrictions or perhaps work around them. Technology advances, but not all people grow with the time. The fact that a lot of older people use double spaces is evidence of that. And that brings me to people who are stuck in their ways. Despite the fact most of us know close to nothing about typography, I see a lot of passionate reactions here from people who argue double spaces are absolutely better while the typographic community actually advises against it. I believe she was very clear about that. Years ago I would do a lot of website coding and so I would be pretty up to date with the latest innovations regarding CSS coding for example. Now my attention shifted to print and type design. I can still code and actually have an advantage there compared to my classmates at the art academy since most of them have yet to learn coding. One has to do a lot more research into the history of typography and practices today to write a well-informed article on the matter. However, her article does align with what the typographic community thinks, which is that double spaces after periods are not recommended. Historically it was preferable to have about 1,5 space after the period. In typography there is always a consideration of both aesthetics and functionality. Especially for book setting, functionality is very important. You want the reader to have a comfortable experience, after all. Bad typography causes strain on the eyes and so the reader will stop reading faster, get a headache or abandon the book. We typographers work hard to avoid that. Most of them are simply ill-informed. It may add clarity, but I would argue it adds clarity unnecessarily and it goes at the expense of the reading experience. Adding an extra space makes the division more obvious, but since two full spaces is too much you create an unnecessary pause which increases typographic awareness while good typography is invisible. You add strain to the eyes which diminishes the reading experience. If anything it creates extra strain on the mind. I would rather think a bit more than getting a headache from reading. The fact that you do go with the time and you do have insight into the latest technology is besides the point. Once I realized — and truly understood — that all of these decisions are a matter of style and opinion, life became easier. In my first publishing job, we typed translations of foreign technical journals on either a selectric or an executive typewriter, depending on the material and the symbols involved. For whatever reason, we used ONE space after a period in selectric and TWO for the executive journals. As word processing progressed, printer resolution improved, and desktop publishing advanced, it seemed to me that using the single space after a period helped the page lay out better, and I stopped fighting the change. Sure helps when one has to do to a hard edit to make text fit in a confined space! But I have yet to work in a company that actually DOES straight AMA editing. After all, if writers and editors do not, who will? But consistency in a journal, book, webpage, whatever is what counts, not whether the journal from one company is written and edited in the same style as a webpage from another. I have worked at three design studios so far. One of the companies is a marketing company which makes about a million per year and yet they were using a logo one of their interns made a couple of years ago. Nothing wrong with that necessarily, but to me it was very obvious that the person who made the logo simply did not know the basic principles of type design. For starters, horizontal strokes look optically thicker than vertical strokes so you have to compensate for that. The logo looked absolutely amateurish to me, yet this big company had been using the logo for years. You first have to have specific knowledge before you can apply it. They first had to learn about the basic principles of type design before they saw how amateurish their logo was. The same applies to me. For most of my life typography was not particularly noticeable to me. Years ago I started researching extensively and now it has become an obsession and I constantly see things which are absolutely wrong. It has even influenced some of my friends; just the fact that I teach them something new once in a while has been enough for them to start noticing typography as well. Many companies never learn, so they never see. Plus, one of the original reasons for doing the single space in electronic documents had to do with the additional size of a file with those extra keyboard strokes taking up additional bits. Now that stored memory is measure in terabytes this is not an issue. Finally, I admit my eyesight is going. The new rule IS one space after a period. It came about because the first computer wordprocessors that did right justification used to space out the space between characters, the spaces between words, AND the spaces after a period to make a line look even. Adding 2 spaces after a period added too much space between sentences. However, I still use 2 spaces after a period because good ole stupid Word does not space out between characters or after a period. It only spaces out between words. Consequently, I feel that one space after a period makes the text harder to read, so I still use 2. Are you using so many abbreviations that a distinction is required? Once in a while I use etc. Adding half a space after the period would be preferable, but adding a full extra space is a nasty solution as it diminishes the reading experience. I would rather have the occasional abbreviation look less eloquent than each area at the end of a sentence. Actually other research says this is wrong. As far as I know, AP the journalist style manual is the ONLY style manual that has changed to 1 space. It looks so clunky and cluttered and just is generally ugly when you use 1 space instead of two. The argument over one space or two reminds me of the Food Police advice on whether or not to eat eggs. They are bad for the heart! I was taught in my typing class using IBM Selectrics in 1986 — beat you to it by a year to use two spaces behind the period after a sentence. My career path went into Information Technology where I have continued the practice to this day. When writing technical documents, nobody has ever complained that I am using two spaces after my sentences. In my opinion, white space matters nearly as much as the printed word. Having the extra space between sentences does mean pause. They would definitely be considered run-on sentences today with sentences being extended with semi-colons and commas, but back then, this was the norm. In that era, you actually needed the extra space to really tell when the sentence was finally over. Mainly, because that is my preference in how I present what I write. I just heard about this on the radio the other day, they said that it shows your age if you put two spaces after a period. I said to myself that is crazy because I am only 28 years old, I have always done word processing on a computer and have ALWAYS put two spaces after the end of the sentence. I had never heard of only putting one space after a period until that day, when I asked my older colleagues, who are 41 years old and 57, they said they have always only put one space after a period. Is it really that big of a deal to put two spaces after a period? I think it simplifies things, what happens if you abbreviate something with a period at the end of the abbreviation, I think there should be a difference between abbreviation and the end of a sentence. Although much has been said here often repeatedly , there is one more factor that I would offer up for consideration: Many commenters here have emphatically stated that two spaces is more legible and esthetically pleasing and proponents of one space have argued the opposite. This reminds me of what happened in Germany after World War II. Until then, almost all publications in Germany were printed in Facktur fonts a condensed version of Blackletter — that heavy, spiky lettering only seen in churchs and other old-fashioned professions today. The lesson from this is that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and legibility is greatly influenced by what you are used to. Where does this leave us? Continue to use double spaces if you feel you must, but just be aware that you are stuck in a practice that is contrary to the views of almost all contemporary professional typographers, publishers, and printers. Who insisted on using Fracktur for so long? The contemporary German professional typographers, publishers, and printers of their time is who. I would prefer a 1. Continue to use single spaces if you must, but just be aware that you are stuck in a practice which has on balance demonstrably more negatives than benefits. The reasoning provided by double-spacers is consistently more cogent and substantive than the reasoning provided by contemporary typographers, Dutch or otherwise. One of my favorite memories from my days in the classroom revolves around the days when students were working at their desk and I was typing away at mine. At least once a year one of the male students would have to come look over my shoulder in doubt that I could actually correctly type that fast without looking. Sounds like you might have had that happen in your class too! That happens with my own kids! They are just floored by how fast I can type. Such a useful skill! I will disagree for exactly the reason you give, fonts. I am a playwright. Even though I now write on a computer, my scripts appear in courier font. The scripts look typed, just as they always did. When writing in my Celtx word processor, I double space. Not only does it give the actors a break, but it is easier to estimate the time a page of script will take in production. That keeps my aging neurons fresh. Another exception: writing computer code. Multiple spaces clarify the difference between the working instructions on the left, and the comments on the right. Please stop beating yourself up about this column. By the way, I see us as kindred spirits. I wrote a book called. It, too, uses humor to point out many flaws in how we use language and ways to improve our use of it. Pupu Wrong: You always poo-poo new ideas. Right: You always pooh-pooh new ideas. Pupu is a selection of snacks served on a platter in a Chinese restaurant. Just make sure they serve you a pupu platter, and not a poo-poo platter! There are hundreds of other similar examples in the book along with punctuation tips—such as the serial comma—and tips for active vs. And, yes, it does briefly talk about double-spacing. By the way, I have authored four novels and four nonfiction books. The newer ones are self-published, but the older ones were published by McGraw-Hill and other publishing houses, big and small. All used single-spacing after periods. Double-spacing just looks weird with proportional fonts. I really appreciate you stopping by to comment. I have changed your book title to a direct link so people can check out your book — it looks really good. Will there be a print version anytime soon? I feel like I should probably split that into two words… Thanks for the link Jennifer! So much so, in fact, that I named my younger daughter Jennifer. Are you on Facebook? I almost forgot to answer your question about a print version. I considered it, but I tend to update the book a couple of times a month. So a print copy would quickly become less useful than the ebook version. People seem to have an innate talent for mangling language. I suppose the argument for proportional vs. However, I do find the larger space between sentences to be slightly more important than the space between words, even though there IS an ending punctuation mark. The only time I only use one space is when tweeting, and nearing the end of my character limit, which makes me wonder if that is the real source of this nonsense… It is generational. And I fail to see what the big deal is. It is also about habit. I find the people who get their knickers in a twist about something so little really need to find something to occupy their minds. It is after all an easy fix in the editing process of something. When I write I am focused on the words, not how many spaces I put at the end of a sentence. It is habit, pure and simple. I was sort of annoyed that my mom insisted I take a typing class in 1984, but it really was helpful darn, she was right AGAIN! Now that I am addicted to my iPhone and iPad, I have often wondered about spacing. The best trick I recently figured out is that if I hit space twice at the end of a sentence, a period automatically appears! So I FEEL like I am still putting a double space as it was ingrained so long ago, but there is actually just one. And it saves me from having to find the period on my small screen iPhone. I really do love technology! But it is incorrect to say that this is due to proportional fonts and computers. Because books have been typeset with proportional fonts for centuries probably since Gutenberg , and they used to always have larger spaces between sentences than between words. Pick up an older book and see. I still think a larger space enhances readability. Please please make sure you limit this to proportional fonts. You have no idea how many court reporters you get bent out of shape by making this blanket statement. Court reporters still use mono fonts. We may be the last to use them, but we do use them. One space after the period is wrong wrong WRONG in that situation. I find it positively laughable how bent out of shape some people are getting about this topic. Double spacers, keep doing your thing. Pretty sure my wishy-washy views on that one would make me an unwelcome guest on either side. The only difference is that I call it the serial comma. There are so many debates about style regarding who is right, who is wrong. I have found this article very interesting! One thing I have always insisted on is the two space method. Many of my students have compared it to the way they were taught to write by hand. One finger space between words and two between sentences. I am self-taught at typing and only do the double space after discussing it with other teachers. I also prefer the look of two spaces between sentences, although I admit that is probably just because it is what I am used to! However, this has inspired me to modify my ways for the next school year too close to the end of the school year to change the rules now! I think I will have a discussion with my middle school students about the pros and cons that were listed here and allow them to make their own decision. Perhaps two spaces will eventually just disappear, but since it still seems to be a discussion educating them on the topic might bring about some interesting conversation! In writing this post, I have tried to single space but have wound up going back and trying to manually change the spacing that I did without thinking. I think that I will probably continue my habit of double spacing…at least for now! Also, much like several others on here I rarely create accounts on websites just to post. But I found this topic so interesting that I could not resist! Thanks for the great article! As a magazine editor, I love this article. In fact, an otherwise glorious submission you send to a magazine might be rejected simply because no one has time to edit out the double spacing. But the upside is that we are all lifelong learners and can adapt. Grammar Girl addressed the topic in 2009 , and writers who are serious about their work took notice. After all, a 30-year-old human resources person will likely notice if you double space on your resume and cover letter. It ages you and indicates that you will likely be a liability if the job you seek requires any sort of written communication. Gosh, I could go on and on. But the bottom line is that everyone who uses a computer keyboard is communicating with a new set of rules. Proportional monospacing has made double spacing a thing of the past. Why shoot yourself in the foot when you can simply use one space after a period? Thank you for getting the word out and addressing my pet peeve. I learned to type in middle school on a computer and was told to double space. None of my teachers, employers, friends or relatives many of them are teachers have ever had an problem with the way I type. Like you, I consider typing class to have been one of the most valuable classes I ever took. I am now committing to making a concerted effort to change. I just had to delete extra spaces in all that I have typed so far in this post! I have started to wonder if anyone teaches grammar and punctuation at all anymore. I know my grammar is not perfect and my punctuation could always use a good editor. Now I suddenly feel a need to apologize for using your blog as my soap box. I suppose I have felt distress about what I have observed as a serious decline in use of the English language. When I found myself called on the carpet over my extra spaces, I felt compelled to share my concerns. This is not directed at you or anyone in particular. I was taught that common usage is what changes the language and that there really are no rules other than to satisfy a teacher or ones employer. Words change with time but we do not necessarily discard previous meanings, we more likely simply add the new meaning to the list. I tend to be old school and adopt what I like from the new school and not adopt what I do not like. I see no harm to the double space so I use them, not out of habit but because I like the aesthetic. I make no apology for offending anyone who has a differing opinion. Opinions are not rules in English. Think otherwise and you are speaking and writing in the wrong language. I believe the French language has a ruling body so those needing a language with hard and fast rules should probably write in French. So double spacing at the end of a sentence tells people that I am over 40 — so what? I have no problem admitting that I am over 40 65 a week ago, in fact and am still a functional and employed member of society. I will continue to double-space, and fully agree with several previous comments about the ease of reading a document with double spacing at the end of sentences. I also agree that the dearth of proper grammar and spelling in society today, particularly in popular media and advertising, is much more worrisome than a mere two spaces at the end of a sentence! The previous commentator is correct; my double-spacing has disappeared! By the way, another pet peeve of mine is the misuse of the ; vs. Seriously, those of us who were taught typing on manual Royals in the same part of the school where shorthand was taught, spent our lives double spacing between sentences about as automatically as we rode bicycles. That was the whole idea behind the typing OK, keyboarding — you do it without thinking about it. I will always say that Typing 1 was one of the most valuable classes I had in high school. But enough about the days of Dinosaur High where typing classes sounded like the Western Front. By going through a lengthy process, Word will allow you to choose the number of spaces between sentences when correcting grammar and then you must manually correct by right clicking. A major contrast is Open Office Writer 4. And, by the way, I only double spaced three times while writing this. But, then, I am over 40, or so. I learned to type on an old, manual typewriter without a 1. That means it also was without an exclamation point. You coped by typing a period, backspacing once, and typing an apostrophe. If nothing else, we were spared statements punctuated by!!!!! If you needed £, you typed a lowercase f, backspaced once, and typed a capital L. That was in the U. But in the 70s, I started working as a typesetter—later loftily called a typographer. Early typesetting software beeped at you if you spaced twice and discarded any spaces after the first one. I quickly learned to space just once—everywhere—to avoid the beeping. I eventually moved on to more ambitious typesetting software such as PageMaker, Quark XPress, and InDesign. Word underlines double word-spaces as errors because, yes, they are considered incorrect. One of my clients sends me type to proofread that later will be uploaded to a website. For those who think the second word-space is important for helping readers to recognize the end of a sentence—what do you think the capital letter on the first word of a sentence is there for? Why does it matter? There are a lot of holdovers from earlier eras of language, because language is an organic, additive process. Old words can gain new, modern meanings. Do the extra spaces account for a huge loss in paper efficiency in printed media? I am 25 years old, and space twice after sentences. When I was five years old, my mom bought me a beautiful old-fashioned typewriter because I thought it was cool. She taught me how to type on the typewriter, and one of the things she taught me was to use two spaces after each sentence. Years later, my typing teacher taught me the same on a computer when I was in fifth grade. I would have to mentally and physically restrain myself to typing only one terminal space after each sentence; and it would take me forever to type. Most people I know did as well. I just finished grad school a year ago, and in my field we use APA, and we were definitely told by our instructors NOT to do two spaces after a period. Took a long time to train it out of my system. Whether using hot type Linotype or cold type computer-generated , The rule has always been except for monospaced fonts, only one word space after a period. I can assure you that if you submitted a copy to a professional type house that had two spaces after punctuation, it would be corrected to a single space, whether being used for advertising, publications, packaging, signage, TV titles or pretty much any other use. I am also finding it ironic that as I am using the dictation mode to write this post, it is throwing in double spaces that I am, naturally, going back and fixing. I think debates like this are healthy, though. I like the two spaces because otherwise, I zip past the end of the sentence. One Space Is Old School Online Writing Ok. Jennifer I am afraid you are showing the era that you started putting things online. As someone who has also learned web design and other IT things — I can say that was an issue of the technology of the time. Yes, today marketers will say a title will be clicked on more if it is x characters and less. But those things are arbitrary and a sign of the moment — not based on a recognized rule or convention. Once I realized that I did not have an IT person calling the shots on this — I went back to the more elegant two spaces between a sentence. But then I also indented. Using the double space when you are creating a document that will never have an online use never should have been changed to one space in the first place. Oh, and I would suggest to your web-person that they change the spacing settings for between paragraphs — this looks huge to me. Actually, I am over 40 57 to be exact and I never heard of this rule. I was a court reporter for years. I used typewriters every day and never once heard of this. If a lot of your time was spent in the legal field, that may be the reason. One other group you forgot to include is writers, and by that I mean authors. People who write manuscripts, scripts, advertising copy, plays and screenplays use two spaces at the end of a sentence because their work is meant to be read. Any other reason to change the norm is impractical and foolish. The reason we use two spaces is readability. It is just a tough habit to break, as you can see within this comment. I prefer the look of two spaces. It gives a breath between the completed thought that is a sentence. I feel the modern age is averse to space. All space needs to be filled with something. There always has to be music playing in public buildings. People cannot sit in the car without the radio or some music or god forbid a video going on. Just like the habit of two spaces, the habit of filling in all the space is just that—a habit. And for the most part it is a bad habit. Space is needed to reflect and make sense of the world. In music it is the space as much as the notes that gives structure to rhythm. It is the ability to suspend a note for the appropriate length of time which gives a finely executed piece it distinction. Less accomplished players are always in a hurry to sound the next note. Being able to consciously participate in the space between notes is just as important as the notes themselves. I suggest that either style should be acceptable. I think that the self appointed writing style advocates should tone down the militancy a notch, this article, however being more conciliatory than some. After all it is the content of writing that we ought to give our time and attention. Languages, grammar, styles, and protocols change rather quickly in the larger scheme of things. Stimulating thought is timeless. Oh, the terrible amount of effort it takes to hit the space bar twice! You could get carpal tunnel syndrome. Apparently having standards is now a bad thing. They just get in the way. There are in fact many finer points of language which are upheld by these people. A little help seeing where the often very long sentence ends can only make it easier to struggle through such writing. Of course I advocate for shorter sentences too. The move to single space was driven mostly by publishers who wanted cheaper publications. Single space is arbitrary and has nothing to do with typewriters or better aesthetics. When type-writing were they followed with a double space like the period? If they were only followed by a single-space, why? I for one find text easier to read when there are two spaces after a period. I am over 60 and I use 2 spaces because I use new technology. It provides convenience and speed. When you put a double space at the end of a line, the program automatically places a period in its appropriate spot and starts the next word with a capital. Continue to manually put in the period, one space and a capital. I choose to let modern technology do the work for me. A number of things have changed over the years and this is one of them. I learned to type in 1971 on a manual typewriter. You had to press the keys HARD. I got an ELECTRIC typewriter as a graduation present to take to college! I concede I am over 40, but I too am a professional with long experience in publishing and editing, and essentially all of my work has been on computers with proportionally spaced fonts. The primary reason to go with two spaces is because of the use of initializations and abbreviations ending with periods. With single-spaced sentences it is often difficult or impossible to tell on the first pass whether a sentence has just concluded. Read this: It is important to use two spaces in the U. So at the very latest you know the whole thing is to be taken as a sentence by the time you actually reach the comma, not after. The sentence could end at the comma and still make perfect sense. I thought that they were just dumb, but I am wondering now if the teleprompters use a single space after the period, and they are unable to see the end of the sentence in time to get their phrasing correct. Can any one comment on this idea or mishmash of ideas? I like the double space because it gives rhythm to my typing, but others get bent out of shape over my use of it. This seems like nothing more than the chicken or the egg argument. I say live and let SPACE! Excuse me for inserting my opinion into this debate but being over 50% past the 40 threshold allows me the privilege. All of the argument over one vs two spaces begs the term anal retentive. After spending too many years under the influence of the texting world the distinction between 1 or 2 spaces disappears in the smoke screen of no caps or punctuation at all. Call me too lax if you will but I am ecstatic just to see punctuation much less to quibble about one or two spaces after it. Such a tempest in a teapot about one or two spaces after a period full stop. The latter saved space and paper in books etc. We did things differently then. We used pens with nibs and real ink, and learned GRAMMER!!! My pet peeve is: a long wayS. The language is a living language. It evolves, changes and grows. Um…are you studying to be Farhad Manjoo? Howling about double spacing at the end of sentences is like bitching about the Eisenhower Administration. Surely you have something more current and less judgmental to write about. I tried to reason out why people should be using two spaces after a period. I think that another reason, outside the ones mentioned in other comments, is that those people try to show how respectful they are for sentences. They think it is not fair to give one space between two words and the same one space between two sentences. But I want to remind them that there is also a period in between — which is an added respect for any two sentences. In this era of compression and optimization, giving a single space after a period simply means going, necessarily, with the tide of the new era. What matters now is not how big, high, large or wide but how aesthetic, precise, among others. The first computer, a great and powerful invention, was 8 x 3 x 100 feet and switching it on dimmed the lights in Philadelphia as rumoured but had very small or no memory compared to what exist today. Without the first computer, though, we will not be where we are. I strongly support the advocacy for single space after a period. I learned to type on a computer. About five years later, I was taught MS Office programs and WordPerfect at a trade school. And all the while, was told two spaces after punctuation. Actually, especially in the year you took your typing class, the IBM selectric had proporyionally spaced font balls. I assume your class just didnt have them. You will also notice that when typing via a smart phone, pressing the space bar twice at the end of a sentence actually inserts a period, albeit the next sentence is only one space after the resulting period. Perhaps a nod to the way it used to be. I would contend that, the need for two spaces is because periods look so much like commas in most font types at a point size less than 14. Also, if the point size is set to 8 or less then the period almost vanishes, especially on these hyper-fine high def screens that are now available exacerbated even more by hand held mobile devices. Could my resistance to single spaces also be inflamed by my 60-year-old eye sight that needs all the visual assistance it can get from double spaces when reading? One space was the norm in typesetting for most fonts, exactly because of the issues addressed in the article. Computers have turned typists into typesetters and now that we are typesetters we have to follow their aesthetic norms. Go back and look at your post. Notice the lack of your ever so precious second space. Look, I put 20 spaces before this sentence, how many do you see…? So you can keep up your ridiculous second space, and time, technology and common sense will get rid of it for you. Actually, with mono spacing the space is wider than with proportional spacing. I like two spaces because it gives a clear indication between sentences that can sometimes be lost with the infinitely small period. Hi, I also was taught very strictly! So I an old dog who is still a new trick learner. But can I point out one actual logical justification NPI for the two-space rule? I have to agree. The British have a nice workaround for this situation, since they often drop the period after an abbreviation e. Mr Jones, not Mr. But they do keep the period if the abbrev. So the period ending a sentence with an abbrev. But of course I understand that my generation has lost this battle. Just wanted to point put that a little extra space between sentences can be a good thing.

My work still uses 2 spaces and it drives me crazy. Less accomplished players are always in a prime to sound the next note. As someone who appreciates practicality, ease of intaking information the most basic purpose of reading is more important to me than the percieved aesthetics which change from person to person anyway. We get the premise. Reference the comments above. The only pan is that I call it the serial comma. Gosh, I could go on and on. Whereas we incorrectly use hyphens for just about everything, the hyphen is only meant to hyphenate words or to combine words. I suppose if they thought adding spaces is desirable, it would have after 40 memes met a long time ago. I will think this over and might possibly have something smarter to say than dayum in the morning. How many different principles do you want to add to distinguish between sentences. When I found myself called on the carpet over my extra spaces, I piece compelled to share my concerns.