One or Two Spaces after a Period; was: Dumb post to the Stargardts Facebook group

[Jim Kutsch, KY2D]

Warning: this is way more than you really wanted to know.

, I just researched this point at the end of last year. It turns out that
it's a question of when you learned to type. This is another of those
standards that have changed over time.

Putting two spaces after a period was the standard until a few years ago. It
was taught in typing classes in high school and at secretarial schools and
was documented in the "style books" for many newspapers and large companies.
In the days of "continuous width" fonts (like typewriters), it was the
standard. More recently, with proportional spacing in type fonts and laser
and other printers that can deal with proportional width fonts, the standard
has evolved to the use of only one space after a period today. However, the
use of two is still accepted as an alternative, although not preferred in
the style books.

So, in January, I decided to teach myself to switch to only one space after
periods. It was one of my new year's resolutions. Considering I took a
formal typing class in 1966 and have used a keyboard extensively ever since,
teaching myself to change was quite a chore but by the end of January, I
managed to drop those pesky unnecessary spaces. Just think of all the
virtual trees that are being saved.

Finally, for those who want references, here's the best one I found both
because it's a great, humorous article, and because it has links to many
other references on the question:
http://www.prdaily.com/Main/Articles/The_rule_stands_One_space_after_a_perio
d_Period_9587.aspx

Cheers,
Jim

-----Original Message-----
From: Speakup [mailto:speakup-bounces at linux-speakup.org] On Behalf Of Albert
Sten-Clanton
Sent: Tuesday, April 09, 2013 7:40 PM
To: 'Speakup is a screen review system for Linux.'
Subject: RE: Dumb post to the Stargardts Facebook group

Greg, I learned to put two spaces after a period ending a sentence when I
learned to type.  I don't know if conventions have changed, but that's why I
do it.  

Al 

-----Original Message-----
From: Speakup [mailto:speakup-bounces at linux-speakup.org] On Behalf Of
Gregory Nowak
Sent: Tuesday, April 09, 2013 7:20 PM
To: Speakup is a screen review system for Linux.
Subject: Re: Dumb post to the Stargardts Facebook group

On Tue, Apr 09, 2013 at 07:08:39AM -0700, Tony Baechler wrote:
> I always proofread everything before I post, so hopefully my posts are 
> reasonably free of errors.  Most people don't.  It's amazing how many 
> mistakes you can catch with 30 seconds of proofreading.

I think a part of this for blind and sighted alike is laziness. I know a few
people who are just content to type what they have to say, and just hit
send, because they don't feel like reading through what they wrote. These
are people who are sighted and blind. I'm not assuming here either. When I
mentioned this to them, this is what they told me, they don't feel like
reading through casual writing. Unfortunately, I've looked through their
professional writing too, and they are invariably surprised by the amount of
errors I point out to them in such pieces of writing.

On another note, I noticed a number of blind people, including yourself
putting two spaces in between every sentence. I put in just one, because
this is how I learned it in braille, and it just stuck. Is there some sort
of significance to the two spaces thing, or is it just personal preference?

Greg


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