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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
It is your fault Max! Restore the second space after the period!
That doesn’t sound right to me, though I’m no expert. Here’s a link explaining that extra spacing after a sentence was common in printing, though not universal, long before the invention of the typewriter.
I’m also going to appeal to reverse authority. Here’s a link to an article by some guy at Slate explaining the superiority of the one space rule, and citing this as the rule supposedly settled on by typographers in Europe “around the early 20th Century” and claiming that “America followed soon after.”
I submit that, as a good Conservative, if a Slate article claims that something is correct, you should automatically disagree, especially if it is arguing that Europe adopted that supposedly correct thing before it spread to America. :)
OK, I actually did check this on some of my older books. You will have to take my word for it, but the following are set in type that includes a larger space after the period than between words within a sentence:
It took more work to draw this conclusion out of the Jefferson volume and the Bible. Malone seems to include an endnote reference at the end of almost every sentence, and the Bible usually, but not always, has a verse nubmer inserted at the end of a sentence.
I have a follow-up question to this one.
Would not having a tattoo make me a luddite, or would having a tattoo make me a luddite?
I’m not saying which is the case, and I’m not saying whether or not I want to be a luddite. Inquiring minds just want to know.
Hmmm. I believe we had this debate a few years ago. On both topics – double space and oxford comma.
http://ricochet.com/archives/one-space-two/
Not so fast. That didn’t happen until proportional spacing typewriters came out in the 1950s I think the “double space” effect, which was used for decades on the old monospace typewriters where every character, including the period took up the same amount of space (usually 1/10 or 1/12 of an inch) is a holdover from the way typeset pages were traditionally set up. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it
I’m with Gary, two spaces. Also, you can now expect four horses of the apocalypse…the end is near. :)
I am a proud graduate of a number of institutions of higher education. Forget colleges and universities–my most productive educational experience was several weeks at Katharine Gibbs. Yes, I am a Katie Gibbs girl. The Katharine Gibbs Handbook of Business English is an authoritative resource. Two spaces after the period; also, two spaces before the zip code.
I single space and I enjoy it.
I read through the first 30 or so comments, and was surprised to find–on Ricochet, of all places–a total of zero references to the fatal flaw in the OP.
A “scientific” study has shown something? Pish-tush. We don’t need no stinking studies (unless someone has followed up to demonstrate that the studies are not simply pseudo-scientific covers for ideological bias)! Who did that study, anyway? Al Gore? The great academician Lysenko?
Sure; I learned to type on a manual machine, and dutifully learned to pop in two spaces after a period. But then I was informed of a regime change–make that one space, sonny–and I have followed that every since. Not because it had been scientifically “proven” to be better, but because it seemed sensible to me.
I think you mean well punctuated books.
Hm. I use the Oxford comma but also two spaces after a period. I’m trying to figure out the extent of my ludditism. Can you give me a little help?
Heathen!
You’re a lud.
OK, so two spaces is also left over from typesettings predating the typewriter. Either way, it’s an anachronism! 😁
Are you implying that you use a different word in Fouled Up Beyond All Recognition?
Now, let’s talk about the issue that really differentiates the men from the boys. Justification. It appears to me that all of your justification is on the left. Now, on a site like Ricochet, I could understand if the justification were on the right. But look at all of you. On the other hand, when I write something, it is always fully-justified.
But the article in the Washington Post just came out, proving me to be right!
It isn’t about enjoyment!
It is about decency, duty, and doing the right thing!
It isn’t about enjoyment!
It is about decency, duty, and doing the right thing!
No, I am an anachronism!
That is a fertile new area for discussion!
i am also fully justified!
Aren’t we all at this point?
That is not what I see. But Shift-Alt-J could fix that.
@drewinwisconsin and @misthiocracy, we need your special brands of knowledge in this thread.
I can’t imagine that @drewinwisconsin would ever agree with me!
Yes.
I believe in ragged right margins.
Face it, Gary. You’ve started a war.
I think that if I had to go with either right or left that I would much prefer to see the right margin solid and the left in ragged disarray. Let the right be hard and strong and the left dealing with the price of their anarchistic followers and attempts to destroy the institutions that have kept our civilization upon a firm foundation.
Yeah, yeah. Always with the left-handed prejudice, Moriarty.
I would think that being left-handed, right margin alignment would be better for you.