3 ms·

I’m Satoshi and so is my wife. I didn’t think double spaces after a full stop is an American thing. We were taught that in the 70s back when typewriters were

I’m Satoshi and so is my wife. I didn’t think double spaces after a full stop is an American thing. We were taught that in the 70s back when typewriters were still a thing. And I can’t break the habit today.

bombcar 3y ago
I've seen it from various people from various backgrounds. The biggest commonality is age (typewriters) but I've seen it from youngsters, too. I split the difference as my typing grew up with LaTeX so I want a slightly larger space after a period, but I don't care to type it ;)
- RajT88 3y ago
  I was taught typing on electric typewriters in junior high, and yes 2 spaces after a period. Which is strange, because my first typing experience was on Apple IIe's in grade school. I don't recall any typing instruction back then, so probably my double space habit comes from the electric typewriter instruction.
  - bombcar 3y ago
    The "double space" for typewriters comes from style guides based on typesetting which was based on limitations of the type used in the ancient days. There's much argument over whether it is proper or not, and if so, how much. See The Elements of Typographic Style or A Few Notes on Book Design - https://mirror.math.princeton.edu/pub/CTAN/info/memdesign/memdesign.pdf https://mirror.math.princeton.edu/pub/CTAN/info/memdesign/me...
    - ramses0 3y ago
      Dr.[space]Pepper is a soft drink.[space][space]This is a new sentence. Actually, "Dr Pepper" doesn't use a period so the point is void, but there's definitely some potential semantic (and display) differences between the periods in (eg) N.A.S.A. and the periods at end of a sentence. Not quite as straightforward as you might think.
      - bombcar 3y ago
        The books go into it, and LaTeX has \. for periods that are not sentence-stops (there's even more, as word-breaking and line-breaking come into play, as you don't want to end a line with Dr. when it's part of a name, etc.

bombcar 3y ago

I've seen it from various people from various backgrounds. The biggest commonality is age (typewriters) but I've seen it from youngsters, too. I split the difference as my typing grew up with LaTeX so I want a slightly larger space after a period, but I don't care to type it ;)

RajT88 3y ago
I was taught typing on electric typewriters in junior high, and yes 2 spaces after a period. Which is strange, because my first typing experience was on Apple IIe's in grade school. I don't recall any typing instruction back then, so probably my double space habit comes from the electric typewriter instruction.
- bombcar 3y ago
  The "double space" for typewriters comes from style guides based on typesetting which was based on limitations of the type used in the ancient days. There's much argument over whether it is proper or not, and if so, how much. See The Elements of Typographic Style or A Few Notes on Book Design - https://mirror.math.princeton.edu/pub/CTAN/info/memdesign/memdesign.pdf https://mirror.math.princeton.edu/pub/CTAN/info/memdesign/me...
  - ramses0 3y ago
    Dr.[space]Pepper is a soft drink.[space][space]This is a new sentence. Actually, "Dr Pepper" doesn't use a period so the point is void, but there's definitely some potential semantic (and display) differences between the periods in (eg) N.A.S.A. and the periods at end of a sentence. Not quite as straightforward as you might think.
    - bombcar 3y ago
      The books go into it, and LaTeX has \. for periods that are not sentence-stops (there's even more, as word-breaking and line-breaking come into play, as you don't want to end a line with Dr. when it's part of a name, etc.