I have always placed one space between sentences in the same paragraph. Until I began editing submissions for Neatorama (mainly to correct line breaks for html formatting), I didn't realize so many people placed two (or more) spaces after a period. I also noticed my children used two spaces between sentences in their school work. They said their teachers told them to. How did that habit originate? And who makes the rules for such things?
Slate looks at the "type crime" of double spacing. Which convention do you follow when typing? Link -via Buzzfeed
Typographers, that's who. The people who study and design the typewritten word decided long ago that we should use one space, not two, between sentences. That convention was not arrived at casually. James Felici, author of the The Complete Manual of Typography, points out that the early history of type is one of inconsistent spacing. Hundreds of years ago some typesetters would end sentences with a double space, others would use a single space, and a few renegades would use three or four spaces. Inconsistency reigned in all facets of written communication; there were few conventions regarding spelling, punctuation, character design, and ways to add emphasis to type. But as typesetting became more widespread, its practitioners began to adopt best practices. Felici writes that typesetters in Europe began to settle on a single space around the early 20th century. America followed soon after.
Slate looks at the "type crime" of double spacing. Which convention do you follow when typing? Link -via Buzzfeed
Comments (79)
I was just always taught to use 2. So I have always used two.
That's right the MLA (Modern Language Association) has changed the rule to one space. The period used to require two spaces after it because the period only took up half a character's worth of space. To make sure the sentences were separated enough.
And yes, I did learn how to type on the typewriter first growing up.
Example: "Last night for dinner I had salad, steak, and chocolate ice cream." In the above example, there is a distinct difference between the three items, as there was during the meal. According to the grammar books, though, the correct way to write the above sentence is: "Last night for dinner I had salad, steak and chocolate ice cream." I don't know about anyone else, but the structure of that sentence implies to me that after salad, I had a steak with a big scoop of chocolate ice cream on top. Go back 50 years and the first example is grammatically correct; today the second one is. Why? The AP dropped the final comma in order to save one character when printing newspapers.
You may have also noticed that I use two spaces after every period. In the days of dead tree media where space mattered, which Slate appears to be supporting, it made sense to drop the extra space or the final comma. With digital media, though, space is not a concern, and with the increased prevalence of the period being used outside of its traditional role as sentence ender, I find it helpful to have an extra space to indicate the end of a sentence rather than some other use of the period.
If the author is so concerned about ending that particular grammatical quirk, I suggest they look into employment in dead tree media what it actually matters.
I can use 1 space? I am trying throughout this whole post to only utilize one space after each period. And even though I'm concisouly thinking about it, I can't do it. It's programming. That's ok, the wonderful thing that is reformatting will take care of all the spelling errors, let me know if I've made any grammer mistakes, will tell me my attachment is missing and likely write the damned post for me.
I can stop double spacing. I am an addict.
@Kelly- looks like the double space is gone! ;)
Don't use two spaces people, unless you're trying to ape an elderly secretary.
Current algorithms provide this and delete the extra space... I regard this as the 'avatarization' of online text personalities. You don't get to see the real TTY output (coming from the long, long ago here). Are they fat? You'll never know, but you used to be able to tell if they could spell. Watch for the algorithmization of the its/it's thing... these fall as cheap AI proceeds.
If you take time to think about what you're writing the extra space at the end affects nothing... I waste much more on backspacing.
It's not Neatorama comment system that strips the extra spaces, it's your browser.
Only way to retain extra spaces in html is to use the tag for preformated text.
About the use of double space at the end of a sentence, it's the first time I heard about it. Maybe it was a rule related with the English language? (I'm Argentine)
Offset printing presses like to print a 'grey' page.. if you divide the page into 1cm strips vertically, each strip should contain about the same amount of ink. That makes it easy to regulate the ink feed to the platen. It's hard to print pages where one strip gets a lot more ink than another. Either the dark one will get starved for ink or the light one will get smudged.
Therefore printers prefer 'justified' layouts (both the right and left edges of the text line up) over 'ragged right' layouts. The random spaces on the right edge of a ragged right layout make regulating the inkflow a bitch.
There's no fixed size for linear whitespace in a justified layout, so putting two spaces-of-undetermined-size between any two words is redundant. The layout man will just make one of them whatever size it needs to be, and will throw away the other one. That's a nuisance, so the layout men would tell the writers not to do it.
None of that is relevant to text on a computer screen. There's no ink to regulate, so it doesn't matter if your page is adequately grey. Most computer text runs ragged-right, but if you do want to justify it, the software can handle a redundant space without any trouble.
It's especially irrelevant on the web, because the standard is to treat all whitespace between two printing characters as 'one space'.
So type whatever the heck you want. If it gets formatted as HTML, it will be compressed to one space automatically. If it ends up being displayed in monospace type or ragged-right, it will be a little easier to read.
My touchstone for typographical issues in the computer age is to apply them to the following sentence:
Does the typograpical errors in this sentence mak it harder to understand than the spelling punctuation, and logical one's?
I have to say, once I was editor of my college paper, I was downright tyrannical about abolishing that extra space. And not spelling out numbers -- another style issue that varies a lot.
*Me gets pwned* D:
What? No. Never. Right-justified printing is something that designers came up with. Ink coverage isn't a problem, and setting justified type back in the day was a serious bitch.
Seriously people, friends don't let friends double space after a period. You're just wasting paper.
As for neatorama reformatting the double spaces, its actually an HTML process. HTML code will recognize one "white space" then ignore the rest. If you want more white spaces then you have to enter the code (& n b s p ;). Its the characters inside the parentheses, and no need for spaces. I wasn't sure how Neato's comments are interpreted, and if the system would have read my text as code or actual text.
As I write this, I found that I was putting in two spaces without even thinking about it. However, I'm sure it will be HTML formatted by the time you read this. This is going to be near impossible habit to break!
DIRECTED BY MICHAEL BAY
Typesetters may use this, but I am not a typesetter. I find that the two space break slightly helps my readability on top of the period as it is a clearer break. All this is due to the English language being fractionalized and one side saying that they are correct over the other.
Take quotes for instance. If you are "quoting something", does your comma go inside the quotes or outside them? Are you quoting the comma? I have seen arguments for and against this.
In the end, you can argue until you are blue in the face. The fact of the matter is that everyone is told that one way is the proper way to do something (and it may hold true for where they are from) and that as long as we understand what they are trying to convey, we can tolerate the fact that they are different. Not wrong, just different.
I was taught with the double space method, and 25 years later that's still the method that I use. It is just second nature for me, and is an almost impossible habit for me to break.
As for spelling numbers, not sure which side of the fence you fall on but I was taught that the numbers zero through nine should be spelled out and numbers 10 and higher should be in number form.
Don't like it - don't read it!
This ^.
I also use two spaces and was taught on a typewriter in high school. The rationale was that you were making the break in flow more obvious (the end of one sentence and the beginning of another). This was to contrast the end of a sentence, where there should be a brief pause when reading out loud, with an abbreviated word within a sentence, e.g. St. Cloud or Mr. Rogers, where you wouldn't pause if you were reading out loud.
Of course, with texting, isn't this all a moot point? A lot people can't even spell much less punctuate these days. Comments that contain no punctuation at all and are peppered with "u" and "ur" make my brain hurt. Not that I've ever seen one of those on Neatorama. ;)
By the way, anyone notice the tone of the article was intentionally incendiary? "If you use two spaces, you're WRONG, WRONG, WRONG!" Please, go solve world hunger and clean water issues. Number of spaces? Really?
ONE OF THESE IS A FULL LINE BREAK AFTER EVERY SENTENCE.
(ps, the curly bracket goes on the line after the if statement)
Speaking of readability, I've switched to Droid Serif for my legal pleadings. Judges love it.
I was always taught to NEVER use more than one space after a period, starting on a typewriter and later on computers. To me double spaces would look like you are trying to make some odd statement, like using multiple exclamation marks with a one thrown in, or a similar oddity.
Also, for a typography fanatic, the article is incorrect about a space representing a pause. A period represents a pause, not the space. Two spaces does not cause people to pause longer after a sentence.
For me, I am normally a two-spacer but I have been known to drop down to one based on the font. On many fonts two spaces looks better to me and allows me to more easily spot the beginning of sentences when I am quickly scanning a page of text. I tend to memorize text by where it is located on a page and the space between sentences helps with that.
I'm not a militant two-spacer, but I like my two spaces.
it was a hard habit to break.
I have no intention of changing. If people like looking at ugly text, they can write software to change my double spaces into single spaces, the way HTML does. Likewise, if newspaper editors want to be such pedants, they can change it themselves. To quote Oscar Wilde, "I'll leave you to tidy up the woulds and shoulds, wills and shalls, thats and whiches, etc."
Focus on the substance of the ideas and leave the details of style up to people who care about it.
The readability hit is unlikely to be too much. Virtually every book published uses a single space after sentences, and they don't have the same space constraints as newspapers. (Pull a couple down from your bookshelf and see for yourself). We'd have to believe that pretty much every publisher of every novel, newspaper, and magazine are all super space conscious enough to degrade the readability of their own product.
A sentence ends with a period and two spaces. The two spaces make it clear that a sentence has ended. Dr. Jones was typing a long sentence. Mr. Smith was reading it. The list of doctors attending the convention are: Dr. White, Dr. Green, Dr. Brown and Dr. Jones. They will be speakers as well.
See? (If, that is, the comment feature here does not zap the second space in my example graf above.)
For e-mail, websites, and any communication which is viewed on a screen, one space is best. The screen usually creates enough space with one, due to the use of pixels. Also there are technical reasons with html that make one space better.
If your writing is going to be viewed in print, such as magazines or brochures, two spaces is better. One space does not provide enough visual space on a printed page, especially with small type. Letters are typically spaced closer together on a printed page (the higher resolution allows more accurate spacing), so the need for a visual break between sentences is more important.
I do the same thing! I once complained aloud to my coworkers about the double space and they refused to change, so I just do the find and replace. It's easier than trying to convince them the double space is unnecessary on a computer.