Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
A Seminal Strike for the Older Convention! Two Spaces After a Period.
A small firefight has broken out in Ricochet. No, not the battle between the pious NeverTrumps like me and the um, other, people who are [deleted]. No, a much more important issue, namely the use of two spaces between each sentence, after the period, or the suggested new convention of only one space after a period. That issue has now been resolved by scientists. A seminal article in the Washington Post states
“The major reason to use two spaces, the researchers wrote, was to make the reading process smoother, not faster. Everyone tended to spend fewer milliseconds staring at periods when a little extra blank space followed it.
“The study’s authors concluded that two-spacers in the digital age actually have science on their side, and more research should be done to ‘investigate why reading is facilitated when periods are followed by two spaces.’”
So there Millennials and Microsoft Word! You are wrong! You may not correct my use of two spaces after a period. You do not get to set the new standards! Not this time. Not ever!
Two spaces after each period, please.
Published in General
The hyperlink was not displayed. Here it is:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2018/05/04/one-space-between-each-sentence-they-said-science-just-proved-them-wrong-2/?utm_term=.130cbde33ad1
I’m with you 100%, Gary. Also three spaces between the state and the zip code.
Ricochet will not respect the old convention! I tried to edit the post by adding the second space after the period in the title only to have Ricochet ignore my edit!
Three spaces? I thought that it was only two spaces.
Question: if a reader spends fewer ( or is it less) milliseconds at the end of every sentence, wouldn’t that make it also faster (*)
——
(*) says the guy who learned to type on a manual typewriter so I still hit the keys hard enough to move the manual lever for each letter even though I switched to electric typewriters a few years afterwards.
Nor did Ricochet honor my double space in the body of the article. Jon, please instruct the editors to correct this malfunction!
It was three when I took typing eons ago. Actually, I think the convention is one space now.
When I learned to type, there was one electric typewriter in the room. Only the best students got to use it. I wasn’t one. As a girlfriend once said, I had football fingers.
I genuflect in your general direction! The lame excuse for going to one space has been kerning by word processing software. However, I disagree with the one-spacers. Change your margins, use a different font, but keep using two spaces after the period!
Okay, Gary, how do you feel about the Oxford comma? My vote for you for President depends on your answer . . .
Thanks, Gary. I grew up thinking the two space thing was right. Then, while taking a course to prepare to get a job, I was told it was only one space. So this convoluted thinking has been going on for a very long time.
Yeah. I type two spaces every time and Ricochet takes them out every time. Lots of stolen spaces tucked away in the vaults, I think. Whatever do you think they’re saving them for?
I’m a conservative. That doesn’t just apply to politics. It also applies to how many spaces go after a period. None of this newfangledness for me.
Agree 100%. I hereby bestow on you the title of Two Space Cadet.
This was addressed a long time ago.
That said, HTML considers multiple spaces to be the same as a single space. If you want to specify multiple spaces, you need to use non-breaking spaces: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-breaking_space
Those bastards. What won’t they corrupt?
Gah! I was browbeaten into becoming a One-Spacer. I don’t think I can go back. But I wouldn’t mind going back to carrying my mod, leather-cased Smith-Corona Portable off to college. At least for a visit.
PS – I took a combined Business-College Prep course in high school and, although I hate to brag, I did win the top Shorthand (Gregg) prize for 160 wpm. With that and my ingenious idea for making a better buggy whip, I planned to rule the world.
I learned two spaces when I learned to type – on a manual – in a freshman high school year class. (One of the best time investments I ever made, plus – one guy in a class of girls!) After 50 years, it’s tattooed into my hind brain and I’m not changing now.
@max specifically programmed it so.
1927 Underwood portable.
That must have been a serious buggy whip.
Seems like we conservatives have been saying this for 50 years, and with very little to show for it except some fine well-written books.
There shall be 2 spaces, anything else is to invite chaos.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Great post, Gary. The single space is the supreme sign of cultural decline.
Well, maybe not the supreme sign. There’s using inferred improperly, when you mean implied. There’s the use, in theoretically polite company, of acronyms that have become words — you know the ones, generally including the letter F — when you would never use the full phrase in the same company. There’s ending a sentence with a preposition.
Then there’s tattoos, but I have to stop about them. I’m pretty sure that the Rico rules only allow me one tattoo rant every 2 years. Rob said that I could do one a year if I upgraded to Coolidge, but my thrifty nature has thus far overcome my middle-aged grouchiness.
I agree with you about 2 spaces between the state and the ZIP, not 3.
I wish these kids would get off my lawn. Well, off my dirt and rocks, actually.
The only reason for two spaces was because the period on a typewriter wasn’t as wide as a normal letter. That’s it. Anyone who continues to use two spaces is a luddite. Also, the only reason that newspapers used to drop the Oxford (serial) comma was to save ink. That’s it. Anyone who doesn’t use the Oxford comma is also a luddite. Get with the times. 😜
Absolutely and positively, agree. What arrogance to “correct” the proper practice.
(Who says a Never Trumper like you and a Machiavellian Pragmatist like me can’t agree on the really important stuff?)
I am a devout follower of the Oxford comma.
I believe that everything I don’t like to Trump’s fault, so I blame him!
I am honored!