The Top 40

I took typing in late 80's when it was still being taught in high school. I believe it was there that two spaces were required. I used that experience as a leg up to becoming a computer analyst. And do the two space to this day.

I use two spaces; always have and always will. It provides the proper demarcation between words, and sentences (thoughts). Appeal to authority just doesn't work with me. The typographer fascists can take their desires to Congress, or even the UN. We tolerate plenty of personal preferences in communication. This should be one of them. Mr. Bozo should get a life or a more germane topic to write about. Editors should be more alert to the "I've got a deadline. It is necessary that I write something, anything." motives in their subordinates.

I always use two spaces because that is how I learned, it is habit. When I think about it I only use one space but most of the time it is two. You liberals want to change everything and don't give a damn about traditional values.

SLATE says use one space?!? I'LL USE THREE!!!
(I also use 2 spaces. What IS it with these people?!)

I learned to type on a manual typewriter -- more than forty years ago, and we were taught to use two spaces. It looks better. What's the big deal? Is it like helium? Are we running out of space pixels?

IBM Selectric here.

Learned it in typing class too - two spaces. The only time I use one space is when I am creating movie subtitles, because you have a 40-space limit for each line, and can't afford to waste an extra space.

Yes, yes. Of course we ALL learned to use two spaces after the period. But for newspapers and magazines, space is MONEY. Newspaper writing protocols and literary or book protocols are two vastly different styles. Computers,the Internet, and the World Wide Web scrambled the styles, and here we are seriously advocating TWO SPACES!

Next they will want to abolish upper case in order to save ink.

Because of the space pixel shortage, I use one space. If the formatting software wants to splurge and turn it into two I let it have its way, but send a letter to the state pixel authority so they will have a record of the abuse.

As I understand it:
The 2-space thing was a work-around for typewriting (when the typewriter was invented) in order to do what manual set typographers could do -- add a wider metal type spacer between sentences. It was a good work-around obviously. But it is no longer necessary to do when using desktop publishing software which automatically makes the space wider (or should for properly designed fonts).

Because of the space pixel shortage, I use one space. If the formatting software wants to splurge and turn it into two I let it have its way, but send a letter to the state pixel authority so they will have a record of the abuse.

Its basic Elements of Style, and has been used for ages. The internet insists on 1.

"Its basic Elements of Style, and has been used for ages. The internet insists on 1."

How many ages since the birth of the PC?

I always use two spaces. Maybe the professional typesetter bureaucrats (now there's an enviable job) insist that the paragraph looks better with only one space between sentences, but I prefer to focus on the sentence instead.

And why is Slate in such a tizzy about this? Notice that the Powers That Be are already making the necessary adjustments though. Despite the fact that we are all using the two-space rule, the result as printed here yields only one.

"Now that we have forced you to use only one space, let's talk about health care..."

"What galls me about two-spacers isn't just their numbers. It's their certainty that they're right."

In contrast to the writer of this screed, whose absolute certainty in his rightness and righteousness is entirely laudable.
/end sarcasm

"Here's the thing, though: Monospaced fonts went out in the 1970s. First electric typewriters and then computers began to offer people ways to create text using proportional fonts."

No. I was in university in the 1970's and monospaced typewriters were the rule. None of my fellow students used anything else. All the typed documents my professors gave us were monospaced.

And how about professional writers? I have seen facsimiles of many manuscripts, and all of them were monospaced.

Two spaces after a period was taught in typing classes. Teachers and professors expected it.

I am sympathetic if two-spaces causes extra work, but the complainer ought to calm down.

Oh--and there are easy ways to automatically change every instance of two spaces to a single space.

Monospacing is by no means universal, even in the online world. I write for a living and have had to switch back and forth between two spaces and one, depending on the style preferences of my various employers, so often that I'm dizzy. My current boss requires two -- even though the work appears online in proportional fonts -- so that's my current habit. I'll switch if and when it's called for. I can get as obsessive about wrongly-placed commas or apostrophes as any grammar grinch, but I can't understand caring so much about this particular subject. I know! Let's start leaving five or six spaces after some sentences. Then we can randomly leave one. Or none!What do you say?

Monospacing is by no means universal, even in the online world. I write for a living and have had to switch back and forth between two spaces and one, depending on the style preferences of my various employers, so often that I'm dizzy. My current boss requires two -- even though the work appears online in proportional fonts -- so that's my current habit. I'll switch if and when it's called for. I can get as obsessive about wrongly-placed commas or apostrophes as any grammar grinch, but I can't understand caring so much about this particular subject. I know! Let's start leaving five or six spaces after some sentences. Then we can randomly leave one. Or none!What do you say?

Monospacing is by no means universal, even in the online world. I write for a living and have had to switch back and forth between two spaces and one, depending on the style preferences of my various employers, so often that I'm dizzy. My current boss requires two -- even though the work appears online in proportional fonts -- so that's my current habit. I'll switch if and when it's called for. I can get as obsessive about wrongly-placed commas or apostrophes as any grammar grinch, but I can't understand caring so much about this particular subject. I know! Let's start leaving five or six spaces after some sentences. Then we can randomly leave one. Or none!What do you say?

Ack! I didn't mean my typography revolution to include triple comments. Not sure how that happened -- if someone in authority can delete the extras, please do.

Sophomore year typing class, IBM Selectric. Hit the space bar twice after a period. It's funny how that typing class ended up being among the most useful classes I've ever taken! It was an elective.

"Ack! I didn't mean my typography revolution to include triple comments."

That's alright: We just assumed you wanted to really get your point across. :-)

(Did you know that one of the old guidelines for commercial fiction was that anything important should be told multiple times, to make sure the reader got it?)

Two spaces is my habit, what I learned. And I do not care what some busybody flogging his dead hobby-horse prefers. I do two spaces. The End.

Maybeweshouldjusteliminatespacesaltogether? As a manager of 20-some 20-somethings, I take fanatical pleasure in correcting my boyz and girlz in spacing after the period. Those of use who grew up on the Selectric, KNOW that two spaces work better aesthetically than one.

As with most of the commenters above, I too am a two-spacer-after-a-period. Even as I write this comment. However I cannot help but notice that the software that turns my typing into final HTML form seems to turn the two spaces into one. And I know that when I write technical documents in a markup language, such as LaTeX, it cares not whether I use one space or ten, it will choose its own way of setting the text. Still, I type with two.

What nobody seems to notice is that this generation is fascinated with arcana like proportional fonts yet "definately" defeated by the concept that "all right" and "a lot" aren't "alright" and "alot" - and are filled with dread at the prospect of an apostrophe.

Their little brothers (and sisters) find themselves the epitome of idiomatic when they use phrases like "for all intensive purposes" and "one in the same," yet demand that their elders "tow the line" re their preferences in spacing.

As I predicted with the inception of Spell Check, computers have sadly instituted a level of semi-literacy undreamt of by my old-maid English teachers in the '50s.

I spent a lot of professional time in the early part of my so-called career turning typewritten documents into printed documents (an incredibly expensive business). Later in my career we spent a lot of time doing dpt and similar exercises.

Two spaces after a period is a typewriter habit. Computers don't need them, and work just as well or better with one space. Software is much smarter about kerning and spacing than you are. The guy who wrote that article may be a &%$#hole and Slate may be commie propaganda, but he is correct about spacing.

But, don't worry, we will be dead soon and the next generation will develop their own nasty habits.

"But, don't worry, we will be dead soon and the next generation will develop their own nasty habits."

And when I am dead the little beggers can then correct my writing the way they want to see it.

Until then they can take a flying leap.

*ahem*

All this hoopla about spacing then they justify the type so that a
s e n t e n e n c e c o m e s
like this.

Sustainability is what this is about, plain and simple. We use one space for the same reason we use one sheet of toilet paper. Space? Use it up.Wearitout.Makeitdo. We should be grateful the millennials have discovered this notion for the benefit of all.

If you have an iPad or iPhone, notice that when texting or emailing, if you hit the space bar twice at the end of a sentence, it adds the period for you. This works out great for me as I was taught by my 2nd grade teacher, Miss Luck, exactly 53 years ago, that sentences should be separated by two spaces. I can't change now because Slate said so. Besides, I'm sure Slate's logic on this is that we are showing excessiveness with two spaces, so we should give the other one to someone who likely on food stamps.

Mikey NTH: Remember that they will be the ones who decide whether to fill your prescription and give the dope to you or fill it and sell it.

Another strange change I've noticed lately...

Nato for NATO

Usa for USA

US for U.S.

Mikey NTH: Remember that they will be the ones who decide whether to fill your prescription and give the dope to you or fill it and sell it.

Posted by Fat Man at February 5, 2014 8:04 AM

Then I will come back and haunt the living daylights out of them. *shakes ethereal fist*

@Gary: Reminds me of a series of radio commercials years ago. They featured a conversation between a salesman for a semi-obscure American car company (I don't remember which) and a customer. The customer loves the car, but wants to make sure that he is getting the high quality that only a Japanese car can provide. The customer notices that one of the labels inside the door says "Made in USA". The salesman tells him that Usa is a small Japanese island.