A painting of me

Two Spaces

   11 November 2013, evening time

The Elements of Typographic Style advises a single word space two separate two sentences. Most books on typography and layout do. Like most people my age, I had been taught to type using two spaces after a sentence, a hard habit to break. Or so I thought. Apparently sometime between junior high and right now I stopped typing two spaces after a period, but never noticed.

Two spaces? One space? It’s actually a complicated story.

 

Comments

  1. My firm belief in putting two spaces after a period got me in trouble in one of my part-time gigs as a copy editor for an American law journal. The Chicago Manual was the bible, and “one space all the way!” said the editor-in-chief.

    Spacing and the order of punctuation were real issues to editors and typesetters.

    There’s also a stupid rule about three versus four dots if you wish to conclude your sentence with an eclipse….

    So after that summer, I got out of the publishing world.

    by tiff on November 13 2013, 3:31 am   #

  2. http://xkcd.com/1285/

    by pp! on November 13 2013, 8:54 pm   #

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