Time for me to start a PASSIONATE controversy here though like National elections, this may mean nothing to anyone except us graybeards.
Since first beating the IBM Selectric into submission, two spaces have ALWAYS been burned into my subconscious and conscious actions. While we could go on and on about apostrophe abuse, I'll gleefully support a presidential campaign based solely on the preservation of two spaces.
SIGN ME UP!
A user of the Oxford Comma should be given first place in line for Vice President, Secretary of State, chief of staff, or Ambassador to Great Britain.
"In September, Tennessee Attorney General Herbert Slatery concluded that records of an investigation need not be released to the Memphis City Council — because there was no comma. The law requires the records’ release “only in compliance with a subpoena or an order of a court.” Slatery said if there had been a comma after “subpoena,” a council subpoena would get the records, but without the comma, only court subpoenas. And in July, Andrea Cammelleri prevailed on her parking ticket challenge because there was no comma. A West Jefferson, Ohio, ordinance banned parking of any “motor vehicle camper, trailer.” A state appeals judge ruled that, with a comma after “vehicle,” Cammelleri’s truck would have been banned, but without it, only campers and trailers were."
Hugh, I'm with ya! I tried to do a search, failed, but not too long ago someone did a short run of comics portraying Calvin and Susie grown up, with a little girl, featuring similar storylines as the original series... Oh, here ya go.
When you understand why people use two spaces, you'll understand why one space is correct. It is an artifact of type set printing. It was never part of correct usage.
When you understand why people use two spaces, you'll understand why one space is correct. It is an artifact of type set printing. It was never part of correct usage.
Some facts in this link are simply wrong, others are contradictory. To the point though, assuming this fact to be correct...
quote:
The “two spaces after period” rule was established during the days of typesetters, when additional space was needed to show the difference between the spacing between words (which was smaller) and the spacing between sentences (which was larger).
If it was established as correct to have more space between sentences than between words, then why would it now be correct to have that space the same now?
One space between words. Two spaces between sentences. BTW, I've done type setting and was taught to double space between sentences.
My college professors would make a grammatical points deduction for single spacing a sentence. I see it more as, being now of a slightly elder status, a correct and proper thing to do just because we can't see for shit to read as we age. The double space will also let us breathe as we read a paragraph. It is much easier to pick back up where you left off in mid paragraph after an emergency bathroom break. Therefore, I am deeply vested in the camp for double spacing, and will type as such to the bloody end! I might even start a campaign to TRIPLE space!
"If it was established as correct to have more space between sentences than between words, then why would it now be correct to have that space the same now?"
It wasn't established as "correct" from a punctuation perspective. It was done, or established, so that you could easily see where one sentence ended and another began when reading something printed on such a device. It was done to overcome a limitation, or an artifact that the device produced.
It's apparently happening as part of the browser, because HTML treats any number of spaces as one space, and vBullitin doesn't take the time to translate two spaces into the HTML code for two spaces, it just puts the spaces through.
If you do the "view source" in your browser, you can see the few, the proud, the beautiful of two space sentence punctuation.
From now only I'm only view badweb in pure raw HTML source.
My SamDung idiot phone's voice-to-text function translates my speech to hilarious results, rarely correct- and when I choose from the words it offers, it arbitrarily ADDS ANOTHER SPACE!!!
I'm firmly in the two space camp, it's what God intended, take it to the SCOTUS for all I care. Also, I install the toilet paper to roll FROM THE BOTTOM!!!
Sifo, use "\ch{nbsp}" to make a space that won't be eaten. Now I'm off to write a perl script to change all of Hootowl's posts past and present to include two spaces before every period. Muhahahaha!
When texting on my Samsung phone, I notice that if you double space, however accidentally, between words, it automatically adds a period, double-space. As a (long ago) journalism major, double-space-after-the-period was in the AP and NYT stylebooks. It's one of those break-up-the-gray-area-on-the-page tricks, like shorter paragraphs, to make one's writing easier on the eyes, thus easier to read.