I Confess! I'm a Two-Spacer....
#1
I learned how to type in high school on manual typewriters. It's ingrained into my very fingers!

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Exactly two years ago, Farhad Manjoo ranted against people who still type two spaces after a period. To this day, people are still talking about the article. And some of them make a point to leave two spaces after all of their periods. In honor of the piece's anniversary, we are reprinting the piece below:

Can I let you in on a secret? Typing two spaces after a period is totally, completely, utterly, and inarguably wrong.

And yet people who use two spaces are everywhere, their ugly error crossing every social boundary of class, education, and taste. * You'd expect, for instance, that anyone savvy enough to read Slate would know the proper rules of typing, but you'd be wrong; every third e-mail I get from readers includes the two-space error. (In editing letters for "Dear Farhad," my occasional tech-advice column, I've removed enough extra spaces to fill my forthcoming volume of melancholy epic poetry, The Emptiness Within.) The public relations profession is similarly ignorant; I've received press releases and correspondence from the biggest companies in the world that are riddled with extra spaces. Some of my best friends are irredeemable two spacers, too, and even my wife has been known to use an unnecessary extra space every now and then (though she points out that she does so only when writing to other two-spacers, just to make them happy).

What galls me about two-spacers isn't just their numbers. It's their certainty that they're right. Over Thanksgiving dinner last year, I asked people what they considered to be the "correct" number of spaces between sentences. The diners included doctors, computer programmers, and other highly accomplished professionals. Everyone—everyone!—said it was proper to use two spaces. Some people admitted to slipping sometimes and using a single space—but when writing something formal, they were always careful to use two. Others explained they mostly used a single space but felt guilty for violating the two-space "rule." Still others said they used two spaces all the time, and they were thrilled to be so proper. When I pointed out that they were doing it wrong—that, in fact, the correct way to end a sentence is with a period followed by a single, proud, beautiful space—the table balked. "Who says two spaces is wrong?" they wanted to know.
Typographers, that's who. The people who study and design the typewritten word decided long ago that we should use one space, not two, between sentences. That convention was not arrived at casually. James Felici, author of the The Complete Manual of Typography, points out that the early history of type is one of inconsistent spacing. Hundreds of years ago some typesetters would end sentences with a double space, others would use a single space, and a few renegades would use three or four spaces. Inconsistency reigned in all facets of written communication; there were few conventions regarding spelling, punctuation, character design, and ways to add emphasis to type. But as typesetting became more widespread, its practitioners began to adopt best practices. Felici writes that typesetters in Europe began to settle on a single space around the early 20th century. America followed soon after.

Every modern typographer agrees on the one-space rule. It's one of the canonical rules of the profession, in the same way that waiters know that the salad fork goes to the left of the dinner fork and fashion designers know to put men's shirt buttons on the right and women's on the left. Every major style guide—including the Modern Language Association Style Manual and the Chicago Manual of Style—prescribes a single space after a period. (The Publications Manual of the American Psychological Association, used widely in the social sciences, allows for two spaces in draft manuscripts but recommends one space in published work.) Most ordinary people would know the one-space rule, too, if it weren't for a quirk of history.

In the middle of the last century, a now-outmoded technology—the manual typewriter—invaded the American workplace. To accommodate that machine's shortcomings, everyone began to type wrong. And even though we no longer use typewriters, we all still type like we do. (Also see the persistence of the dreaded Caps Lock key.)

The problem with typewriters was that they used monospaced type—that is, every character occupied an equal amount of horizontal space. This bucked a long tradition of proportional typesetting, in which skinny characters (like I or 1) were given less space than fat ones (like W or M). Monospaced type gives you text that looks "loose" and uneven; there's a lot of white space between characters and words, so it's more difficult to spot the spaces between sentences immediately.

Hence the adoption of the two-space rule—on a typewriter, an extra space after a sentence makes text easier to read. 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. Today nearly every font on your PC is proportional. (Courier is the one major exception.)

Because we've all switched to modern fonts, adding two spaces after a period no longer enhances readability, typographers say. It diminishes it.

Rest of Article:
http://www.slate.com/articles/technology...ers.htmlhe! I would have to stop and think after each period!!

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#2
I highly recommend "The Mac is Not a Typewriter"

I think there's also a version out there called "A PC is Not a Typewriter"


Among other things, it talks about the spaces after periods and why we used to use two but now only need (should) use one. Good book. Even if not you're a graphic designer or typesetter.





Quick Tip:

If you've written (or are editing) a lengthy piece of text, and you want to get rid of double spaces, most word processing programs let you do a 'find and replace'. In the find field, type two spaces. In the replace field, type one space. Run the find and replace multiple times until it can't find any more double spaces.

Of course, if you use multiple spaces instead of tabs to do anything fancy with your text, this process will screw that up...
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#3
If they don't like my two spaces they should adjust the software to compensate, I don't plan on changing.
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#4
(01-17-2013, 05:26 PM)PonderThis Wrote: If they don't like my two spaces they should adjust the software to compensate, I don't plan on changing.

Laughing Laughing
I don't 'think' about typing.
I can type while looking out the window.
I type words and sentences instead of separate, individual letters.
It's not that I don't plan on changing, I just don't think I can!
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#5
No, they ingrained this stuff into us practically 50 years ago. I still remember learning to type on manual typewriters to the sound of a metronone beating, and to music (I think they were trying to teach us the rhythm of typing). I dreamed about each finger hitting the keys. It's so automatic now I doubt I could change either, and besides, it looks "right" to me to have two spaces there too.

Everyone that watches me type always comments on how fast I type, and they've pointed out more than once that the more agitated I am, the harder I hit the keyboard. Smiling
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#6
Two spaces make it easier to read.

[Image: 18358.strip.gif]
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#7
(01-17-2013, 06:18 PM)chuck white Wrote: Two spaces make it easier to read.

[Image: 18358.strip.gif]

Ha! Ponder makes the funny papers!!! Laughing
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#8
I sometimes leave one space, other times, two.
I'm wrong only half the time.

When I first saw the title of the thread I thought you were going to confess that you park on the line separating the spaces in a parking lot, thereby using two spaces. TVg does that because he does no want his 1956 Dodge pickup (The one with one red front fender) to get scratched. He shouldn't worry---most of the time the bed is filled with manure and no one want's to get close anyway. Surprised
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#9
(01-17-2013, 06:18 PM)chuck white Wrote: Two spaces make it easier to read.



Typographers don't agree. I don't agree, either.


When using a typewriter, as was explained in the original post, all the characters take up the exact same amount of space on the page. The letters looked loose, compared to how much tighter they are today. So a single space after the period was too small in that sea of loose letters. Two spaces was much clearer, and made it easier to tell that the sentence had ended and you were moving on to the next one.

Fonts on the computer are very different. Not only are the characters varying widths, but the computer knows just how close to put each letter to every other letter. Type a capital A next to a capital T and they're nudged much closer to each other than you'd see for a couple of capital Hs.

AT HH

The A is actually tucked into the space under the top of the T (on my default screen font at any rate).

What you might not know is that the period and other punctuation also have this spacing built in (in the vast majority of professionally made fonts, at least).

So the individual letters are tighter together, and there's a little extra space built into the punctuation, making it easy to tell when a sentence ends. Take a close look at the spaces between the words and the spaces after the periods on this page. It's not a big difference, but it is noticeable when you look for it.

When you add two spaces after a period, you're actually adding more than two spaces, because of that extra space that's already built in.




Of course, it'll take another couple of generations before we lose most of the double space typers. Not that they bother to teach typing in schools these days (though they should). It doesn't really matter anyway, because by then we'll all be typing in txt and lolspeak.
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#10
Learned to type on manuals in high school. Went to secretarial school as electrics came in and work place computers were introduced. I was taught the two space method and still use it. When I went to college in the last ten years it was optional and depended on your generation, really, whether you use it.
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#11
For folks who learned the old way, you got your knuckles rapped (figuratively) if you forgot the double space.
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#12
Hmmm, Rowan, what do you use? One or two? I think I am beginning to learn not to always double space, so, like Wonky, it can be either or.
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#13
(01-17-2013, 07:41 PM)Tiamat Wrote: For folks who learned the old way, you got your knuckles rapped (figuratively) if you forgot the double space.

My typewriter in Korea used to freeze in the winter. My Sgt. told me to piss on it to warm it up.
I asked him if that really worked.
He told me it not only worked, but I'd get court marshaled for damaging government property and get to sit in a nice warm cell.
We set a couple of tires on fire to solve the problem.
Free advice: Don't breath the smoke of burning tires.
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#14
How many remember the trouble it took to put a heading exactly in the middle of a page, where you found the middle of the page, counted the number of digits in the title and divided by half, then backspaced that many spaces to begin your title and hoped you were right.
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#15
(01-17-2013, 07:46 PM)Tiamat Wrote: Hmmm, Rowan, what do you use? One or two? I think I am beginning to learn not to always double space, so, like Wonky, it can be either or.


I originally learned to use two. When I started my first job as an employee doing graphic design (college work study, the second time around), the explanation I gave above was given to me along with an admonishment to only use one space.

It took me a little bit, somewhere between a month and a year, but I got so completely comfortable with it that it was (and still is) more natural to me than using two spaces.

It also helped that I understood why it wasn't proper to use two spaces now, and why it used to be proper before.
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#16
(01-17-2013, 07:56 PM)PonderThis Wrote: How many remember the trouble it took to put a heading exactly in the middle of a page, where you found the middle of the page, counted the number of digits in the title and divided by half, then backspaced that many spaces to begin your title and hoped you were right.

You know, I really hate you for bringing that up. Laughing
I had forgotten.
Now I'm going to have awful dreams of NEVER getting it centered. You are just plain cruel Ponder.
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#17
(01-17-2013, 07:59 PM)Wonky Wrote:
(01-17-2013, 07:56 PM)PonderThis Wrote: How many remember the trouble it took to put a heading exactly in the middle of a page, where you found the middle of the page, counted the number of digits in the title and divided by half, then backspaced that many spaces to begin your title and hoped you were right.

You know, I really hate you for bringing that up. Laughing
I had forgotten.
Now I'm going to have awful dreams of NEVER getting it centered. You are just plain cruel Ponder.

Then when electrics came in, you had to know if your font was pica or elite to make the calculation.
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#18
(01-17-2013, 07:56 PM)PonderThis Wrote: How many remember the trouble it took to put a heading exactly in the middle of a page, where you found the middle of the page, counted the number of digits in the title and divided by half, then backspaced that many spaces to begin your title and hoped you were right.

I had forgotten about that!
I was taught to locate the middle, then backspace for every two letters.
Ha!
And tabs!
And setting the margins!

I remember when my first job bought me a brand new Self-Correcting Selectric. Oh my gosh...state of the art.

I could fly on that baby!

I used a Dictaphone, too.

It had those blue bands filled with insurance agents dictating letters...I would sit there with headphones on, typing away on my Selectric. Laughing
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#19
I think that as long as your consistent, it wouldn't matter.
I like to use a carriage return after each sentence when posting.
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#20
It was also explained to me that, even though your double space doesn't show up on a forum, that empty space still uses bandwidth.

I'm just repeating what I heard...I know very little about bandwidth. Laughing
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