Two spaces after a period: Why you should never, ever do it. – By Farhad Manjoo – Slate Magazine via kwout
It looks like this isn’t just one my pet peeves. Farhad Manjoo of Slate Magazine offers irrefutable proof why you should NEVER EVER use two spaces after a period.
If you don’t have time to read the full article the only reason two spaces became popular is because of mechanical typewriters which weren’t able to deal with uniform spacing. Since the age of the electronic typewriter in the early 70’s there has been no need to add two spaces.
The biggest reason why there are teachers still teach two spaces–because that is what they learned.
HHMMM??? I find that the additional space impairs readability. I am not alone the full Slate articles points to:
“A space signals a pause,” says David Jury, the author of About Face: Reviving The Rules of Typography. “If you get a really big pause—a big hole—in the middle of a line, the reader pauses. And you don’t want people to pause all the time. You want the text to flow.”
With respect to usage dictating/defining rules I understand the preference for this but isn’t this a slippery slope that we want should avoid.
Sorry, Dwayne, I don’t see this as proof! =)
I use two spaces because it’s aesthetically pleasing and increases readability, not because someone used two spaces with mechanical typewriters long ago.
Teachers might have taught the rule because of mechanical typewriters, but we now have generations of people who’ve grown up *preferring* two spaces. And I assert that usage should generally dictate the “rules” when it comes to things like this.