May 6, 2005
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This is an itty-bitty gripe about an itty-bitty matter. Picayune doesn't begin to describe it. But there it is. It's bugging me.
Look again at the above sentence. Notice the spacing between the
periods and the beginning of the next sentence. Two spaces,
right? Well, yes...take my word for it. Two (2) spaces.I'm reading a book, "Twelve Ordinary Men" by John MacArthur, and it's
wonderful, really wonderful, but it's also about to drive me smack
outta my mind, because there's not two
spaces between the periods and the start of the next sentence. Just one
space.If that. One? Probably. I keep hitting two in this paragraph by
habit and have to backspace. That's what I was taught many a moon
ago: there are TWO spaces between a period and the following
sentence.Not one.God forbid none! Two.
Comments (14)
Word processing programs don't like those two spaces, but I'm from that school that was taught to use two spaces, too, Anne. Drives me nuts. Ever notice that your word processor (mine is Word) alerts you if there are two spaces?
Annoying!
me<><
I realized, the farther I got into the book, that the spacing is very uneven, and doubtless it's the word processing program's fault. Sometimes each word in a sentence has two spaces between them.Then there's a sentence crammed onto the previous one.
Oy vey!
How funny! The Xanga program corrected for the double spaces I inserted between each word in the middle sentence in my comment above.
I was taught to use 2 spaces when in Newspaper my freshman year of high school. It became habit, but i've since gone back to one.
You're a Severe Naughtiness, then.
I took typing in highschool and learned to use one space. Just one and this is written with one. When did they start to teach 2?? I was in HS in the very early 40's.
Oh, between a period and the following sentence. Whoops, yes, I guess I do place 2 spaces there. Just never thought about it. Or do I??? Drat, no wonder I flunked typing in HS.
Wow. That would drive me nuts!!! I read your blog entry as one big run on sentance with just 1 space after periods. 2 spaces makes it so much easier to read. It flows better. I never heard of using just 1.
Beth
Learned typing in about 1970, and we were taught 2 spaces after the period. I know what you mean, as I have read people's postings on various forums using only one space and I just assumed that they were self taught typists.
Hey, my Beth is here and posting!
Everyone see sweet Hannah? Huh? Do you?
Click on Ivyleaguebaby and you can see even more pictures of my littlest poppet.
Most modern style guides call for one space. Double spacing is a relic of monospaced type. Single spacing is aesthetically more pleasing because it doesn't create "rivers" of white space, and it doesn't waste as much space. Send me something to edit, and the first thing I'm going to do is CTRL+F and replace all the doubles with singles. Sorry, ladies, but y'all are Behind The Times!
ARRRGGGHHH!!!!
First.....Anne....I've tagged you!!
Second....I learned that you're supposed to double space after a period. So sometime between when your mom went to school in the 40's and when I took typing in the 70's someone decided upon the two spaces.
And now I'm off to Ivyleaguebaby to see pictures of that beautiful little angelbaby!!
Valerie's explanation is the one I've always heard. When all letters were the same width, two spaces between sentences looked better. Supposedly with the new fonts with letters of different widths, a single space is fine. But I still hit the space bar twice between sentences. I do think it looks better. When I'm writing a new entry on my blog, I have to go in and add a space between sentences because the default is one. With you all the way, Anne! And besides, I could never ever get into the habit of hitting the space bar just once between sentences after having hit it twice for nigh onto 55 years now.
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