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I was trained to type two spaces after a period: it's in my muscle memory. This website treats it as a mistake. No typing teacher would downgrade for that. I

I was trained to type two spaces after a period: it's in my muscle memory. This website treats it as a mistake. No typing teacher would downgrade for that. It's awful.

rossant 1mo ago
Two spaces after a period is correct?
- rererereferred 1mo ago
  It was on typewriters because the fonts were monospace so the period would have some extra space to its left, the double space after it made it easier to see at a glance where a new sentence occurs.
- natebc 1mo ago
  [dead]
- yencabulator 1mo ago
  It was never "correct" any more than a single space, it was a convention followed in some places, and not followed in others. Two spaces in monospace font is larger than the typical historical typeset sentence spacing, so it's always been somewhat misguided.
mathfailure 1mo ago
Sir, this is a mistake. You've been trained by mistake to produce mistakes. We know it's awful.
- UI_at_80x24 1mo ago
  No it is not a mistake. It is not fashionable in digital media thanks I believe to twitters character limits. Look at any printed media from the last 100 years. Printing presses, books, magazines, newspaper. A double space offers a visual clue where a 'mental breath' takes place.
  - jasperry 1mo ago
    It's true that the space between sentences should be larger than the space between words, as it is in properly typeset text, though not twice as large. Using two spaces is a way to approximate that when you only have monospaced fonts. It's no longer encouraged in electronic text when using proportional fonts because the rendering software _should_ adjust the spacing itself. edit: monospaced, not proportional.
    - Ferret7446 1mo ago
      It "should" adjust, but in practice most software do not render spaces after periods properly. There is no in band signal to distinguish periods for sentence ends vs e.g. Mr. Thus there is a clear argument for double spacing in all contexts
  - skobes 1mo ago
    > Look at any printed media from the last 100 years. I have, and it contradicts your point. The single space is the nearly universal standard in modern print media.
  - mathfailure 1mo ago
    [flagged]
    - bryanrasmussen 1mo ago
      Buddy, there are rules and there are recommendations. The fact that it was common practice to use two spaces after a period up until the early 2000s in many situations shows that it is not in fact a rule, which is linguistic (as in the capitalization rules for proper nouns), but a recommendation, which is stylistic. Stylistic recommendations can also be taken as rules, but in limited situations, such as a place of work saying we follow these guidelines (a manual of recommendations), which then become rules for that workplace. Finally this link https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sentence_spacing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sentence_spacing shows that their complaint has some merit, because the spacing used are not rules of the language, but conventions or recommendations imposed to improve the production of text based on the requirements and limitations of a particular technology. on edit: probably shouldn't describe capitalization as being a linguistic rule, as it is an orthographic rule...heat of the moment, sorry. One might argue that the same applies to spacing, but I suppose that capitalization in orthography has been established for so long, and in so many different systems that it can be claimed a rule whereas spacing is still just a recommendation.

I was trained to type two spaces after a period: it's in my muscle memory. This website treats it as a mistake. No typing teacher would downgrade for that. It's awful.

rossant 1mo ago

Two spaces after a period is correct?

rererereferred 1mo ago
It was on typewriters because the fonts were monospace so the period would have some extra space to its left, the double space after it made it easier to see at a glance where a new sentence occurs.
natebc 1mo ago
[dead]
yencabulator 1mo ago
It was never "correct" any more than a single space, it was a convention followed in some places, and not followed in others. Two spaces in monospace font is larger than the typical historical typeset sentence spacing, so it's always been somewhat misguided.

mathfailure 1mo ago

Sir, this is a mistake. You've been trained by mistake to produce mistakes. We know it's awful.

UI_at_80x24 1mo ago
No it is not a mistake. It is not fashionable in digital media thanks I believe to twitters character limits. Look at any printed media from the last 100 years. Printing presses, books, magazines, newspaper. A double space offers a visual clue where a 'mental breath' takes place.
- jasperry 1mo ago
  It's true that the space between sentences should be larger than the space between words, as it is in properly typeset text, though not twice as large. Using two spaces is a way to approximate that when you only have monospaced fonts. It's no longer encouraged in electronic text when using proportional fonts because the rendering software _should_ adjust the spacing itself. edit: monospaced, not proportional.
  - Ferret7446 1mo ago
    It "should" adjust, but in practice most software do not render spaces after periods properly. There is no in band signal to distinguish periods for sentence ends vs e.g. Mr. Thus there is a clear argument for double spacing in all contexts
- skobes 1mo ago
  > Look at any printed media from the last 100 years. I have, and it contradicts your point. The single space is the nearly universal standard in modern print media.
- mathfailure 1mo ago
  [flagged]
  - bryanrasmussen 1mo ago
    Buddy, there are rules and there are recommendations. The fact that it was common practice to use two spaces after a period up until the early 2000s in many situations shows that it is not in fact a rule, which is linguistic (as in the capitalization rules for proper nouns), but a recommendation, which is stylistic. Stylistic recommendations can also be taken as rules, but in limited situations, such as a place of work saying we follow these guidelines (a manual of recommendations), which then become rules for that workplace. Finally this link https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sentence_spacing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sentence_spacing shows that their complaint has some merit, because the spacing used are not rules of the language, but conventions or recommendations imposed to improve the production of text based on the requirements and limitations of a particular technology. on edit: probably shouldn't describe capitalization as being a linguistic rule, as it is an orthographic rule...heat of the moment, sorry. One might argue that the same applies to spacing, but I suppose that capitalization in orthography has been established for so long, and in so many different systems that it can be claimed a rule whereas spacing is still just a recommendation.