I hadn't even heard of putting two spaces after a full stop until I read about it on Gabrielle.Edits blog. This may have something to do with being born in the 80s. I had only ever come across two spaces after a full stop in print at my day job in a report written by a colleague. I was reviewing it and promptly corrected it wondering what the hell was with two spaces?!
Nathan Bransford is running a poll on the matter of one space or two and I honestly can't believe it's currently 45% for two spaces. All I can say is thank goodness one space is "winning" otherwise I really wouldn't know what to think.
I'm still shocked! It really must be a writer thing to be so emotional over a grammatical rule. But I can't help it! So please, put one space after a full stop and bring sanity back to the world.
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6 comments:
If you've had it pounded into you, growing up, to do a thing a certain way, then it's just simply The Way Things Are Done. It can be very difficult to accept change! For a lot of people -- not just writers, but anyone who had to take typing classes in school -- hitting 'space' twice is such an ingrained habit that they don't even notice themselves doing it.
Hmm. Interesting. I think there's one space. I had to have a little practise here to find out... It's not something you're consciously aware of because it's like breathing, I suppose.
I was putting two spaces throughout my entire manuscript, because that's what I was always taught. Then my brother told me, "Editors want one space." Talk about retraining the brain--omigosh, I have had fits with this the last couple months!
It's finally a habit--but now I have to work on the spaces between paragraphs, as you see I just did right there. :-)
I was taught two spaces in typing class (back in the 80s). This is gonna take some getting used to and I'm not sure how easy this will be to change unless I enter some sort of automatic edit on my word processor. Otherwise, I'll continue to proceed with two spaces after each period (which I don't necessarily consider to be "inefficient" as the article says, because I'll spend so much time "correcting" each space) :-p
I think I'm fascinated more by my reaction to the debate that the actual question. It would be so odd to change to putting two spaces if that was now the accepted standard.
The first time I saw it was in high school in the late 80's. My best friend at the time looked at it and liked two spaces - it just looked better.
Now, I've seen it a bunch of times since. I don't do it because It's an extra stroke when typing. It's the same reason that I like American spelling actually.
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