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I just read an article by Farhad Manjoo, the "Technology" columnist on Slate.com, about how wrong and annoying are two spaces between a period and the first letter of the next sentence. While I unequivocally agree that the Chicago Manual of Style mandates only one space be used between sentences, I, perhaps because I am a child of the manual-typewriter era, had been taught that two spaces are proper. The APA and other style guides allow for or prescribe two spaces, but the Chicago Manual of Style, the MLA style guide, and the AP style guide all maintain that one space is appropriate.
I have little confidence that I would ever change my habit, since my typing two spaces between sentences is entirely ingrained in me and is simply the natural manner in which I type. The English language is rife with agreed disagreements (viz. the use of the serial comma by nearly everyone except newspapers). Why would this be so contentious?
Also, who among us are "two-spacers"?
One space after a sentence-ending period is just plain wrong, despite all the people on the web whining about how doing it the right way is a holdover from some no-longer-relevant technology. (One of the first sites I looked at on the subject says that browsers will only put one space between sentences anyway; if you know anything about HTML, you'd know that you can put thirty spaces between words and browsers will collapse them into one space as well.)
I'll make this as simple as I can: if you only put one space after a sentence-ending period, how will your word-processor know that "I sent the test results to Mr. Smith for further review." is only one sentence?
tunawrites, count me in. I, too, learned to type on a manual typewriter and do the double space after a period. Thirty years of experience is not easily wiped out. Recently, I tried an online typing test to gauge my WPM. I did not notice the option to choose one or two spaces after the period. My score was terrible and I couldn't figure out why, until I spotted that little check box. Clicked it, took the test again and my numbers looked normal, at around 100 WPM. I then tried to take the test, using only one space. I failed miserably. Old dog, new tricks? Not in this case.
I have several comments on this topic. First, context helps, but not always. How about in this case?
The depth was 2 ft. I measured again.
There's probably more ambiguous examples, but that all I could come up with at the moment.
Second, you can indeed put a double space into HTML using the character symbol " " (non-breaking space). Does it work here? I won't know until I post this.
Test 1: I put 2 spaces here manually. [edit: nope, collapsed to one space]
Test 2: I used the non-breaking space symbol here. [edit: yep, worked just fine]
And finally, I also learned on a mechanical typewriter, and had been using double spaces until about a year ago. The editor of a magazine I write for had been routinely removing my double spaces (after sentences and colons) and finally told me to "Stop doing that!" He said it was "the style" these days. I couldn't find a definitive answer online, so I started a thread on this topic in another forum (WritersWeekly.com). That forum is populated less by the logophiles you find here at WWW, and more by people who make a living doing writing and have to contend with editors.
Got all the standard arguments … everything from "double spaces can mess up line breaks" to "proportionally spaced fonts make a double space unnecessary" to "all those missing spaces add up to more room for ads in print media." The consensus seemed to be that single spaces were becoming the norm, but it was far from unanimous.
I think what it comes down to is the style manual you're expected to use, and your editor's preferences. Not sure there is a purely linguistic "answer" to the question. If there is, I'd like to know.
When I was in school I always like the two-space convention: every space I wasted between sentences was one more for which I didn't have to conjure text. I learned to type in the late 50s, early 60s, including double spaces between sentences, by having typing races with my friend Tom in his father's office equipment store. Even at the time I thought that it (the double-spacing, not the racing) was silly, but I let it become ingrained, and I used it through typewriters, word processors, and on into computers, until I hit a project in the late 90s in which I was told, "Don't use double spaces. Nobody does that anymore." After about three pages I got the hang of it, and good riddance, says I. It's not quite as nasty a habit as smoking, but it's much easier to quit. I just don't see it as a useful convention, because I don't care if my computer thinks that Mr. is the end of a sentence.
Peter
I like two spaces. I recently finished a book that used a single space (or smaller). There were several times I had to re-read back a few lines since I missed the end of the sentence and things started not making sense.
Fortunately, my copy of MicroSoft Word underlines single spaces after ends of sentences with a green squiggly line :-).
Emmett
EmmettRedd said:
. . . my copy of MicroSoft Word underlines single spaces after ends of sentences with a green squiggly line .
How about that? Is Microsoft encouraging what is apparently passe, or are they just accommodating their current base (i.e., us, the one's who were raised on two spaces)? I don't actually care much about the difference that much; I just don't believe I can correct my own typing at this late state. So two spaces shall reign for me -- until I'm edited.
tunawrites said:
EmmettRedd said:
. . . my copy of MicroSoft Word underlines single spaces after ends of sentences with a green squiggly line .
How about that? Is Microsoft encouraging what is apparently passe, or are they just accommodating their current base (i.e., us, the one's who were raised on two spaces)? I don't actually care much about the difference that much; I just don't believe I can correct my own typing at this late state. So two spaces shall reign for me — until I'm edited.
Well, I'm using still MS Word 2000, and there is a place, buried deep in the Tools/Options/Spelling & Grammar/Settings menu where you can specify how many spaces are "acceptable." And as I said earlier in this thread, I've decided to make the change to single-space since I do have to keep my editors happy. Still, when I finish writing, I need to do a text search for " " (that's a double-space, but HTML collapsed it to one) and Word finds all those I missed. But I'm getting better at defaulting to a single space (after colons too). As Tromboniator said … it's a lot easier than giving up smoking. After nearly a year now it's (almost) become my default.
I was in the hospital while this discussion took place, and missed my chance, but for what it's worth: When I was in high-school typing I was taught to use two spaces at the end of a sentence, and after a colon; they called this "French spacing", though no one ever explained to me why. I've never seen it used in publications such as magazines and newspapers, and I've always supposed that that's because of the desire to save space. But it isn't true that "nobody does it any more"; among those who can write, I'd say that well over a third, though not as many as half, use French spacing. I don't think one space is wrong, just a different way of doing it. But I still use two.
I've made one change in my own writing and proofreading: When what follows a colon is a full sentence I capitalize it, but if not I don't. And I use two spaces after a colon only if both are sentences, that is, both before and after the colon. So:
I will tell you this: It shouldn't be accepted in general practice. [Two spaces, capitalized.]
There are 10 types of people: those who can count in binary, and those who can't. [One space, not capitalized.]
Schoolmarm: You mean "whom", don't you? [One space, capitalized.]
I also learned to type in the 50's and have always used two spaces after a period. Not only that, I also used to set type ny hand and always used an en-space after a period. (An en-space is a space half as wide as it is tall.) I find text much easier to read if the sentences stand-out and are not all runtogetherwithnospaces.
Martha Barnette
Grant Barrett
Grant Barrett
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