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Why you should never, ever use two spaces after a period

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Re: Why you should never, ever use two spaces after a period

#51
post #10
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems that the reason it's wrong is that typographers say it is.[single space]The author has not given an actual reason, other than appeal to authority.

HN comments don't respect whitespace as typed when displaying them. (' ' one space vs. ' ' two spaces) An effect of HTML, I'm sure. When I edit the post, the 2 spaces between the second set of quotes is indeed still there.

For the sake of consistency, HN should render -- as an actual dash.

Re: Why you should never, ever use two spaces after a period

#52
Every style guide I've read (I don't have a citation handy) says that either convention is acceptable, as long as you're consistent throughout the document. This is the first article I've ever seen that said two spaces is wrong, and I am not convinced. (However, I will continue to use one space, because I think it just looks better.)

Re: Why you should never, ever use two spaces after a period

#53
post #42
post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I will continue to double-space until I'm dead. Do you have a reason for doing so?

Double spacing helps to set sentences off from each other visually. I prefer reading material that's double-spaced, so that's the way I prefer to write. It's also to some extent simply out of habit. But even if my only reason was because Miss Millie in the 3rd grade told me to( another appeal to authority ), I'm not writing desperate screeds admonishing everyone about being bad people because they aren't listening to…

Does HN truncate double spaces? Testing this now. Otherwise I'm only picking up one space after your sentences.

Edit: Looks like it does. Yay PG!

Edit2: Looks like I forgot some basics of HTML. My 14 year old self would be very disappointed.

Re: Why you should never, ever use two spaces after a period

#54
post #35

Articles with the word "never" in the title: Beware their myopia, lack of vision, and narrow-mindedness. Articles with the word "ever" in the title: Beware their gross generalizations, lack of gray area, and hasty conclusions. Articles with both the words "never" and "ever" in the title: Never, ever read them. (oops)

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. What the articles fails to clearly menti…

My high school honors English teacher made us use two spaces, (class of 2006), and since then, nobody has bothered to tell me any differently.

Re: Why you should never, ever use two spaces after a period

#55
This is a trend I've noticed a lot lately on articles on typography and design - they're very light on 'why' and pretty much just invoke appeals to authority - "my design school taught me to do it this way, QED."

There is a good reason to use one space, and that is that when you're typing, you're only creating text, not typesetting. Software does the typesetting now, and will automatically space out sentences in a way that looks right. You don't need to do it yourself, just like you don't need to enter manual linebreaks anymore.

Re: Why you should never, ever use two spaces after a period

#56
post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Double spacing helps to set sentences off from each other visually. I prefer reading material that's double-spaced, so that's the way I prefer to write. It's also to some extent simply out of habit. But even if my only reason was because Miss Millie in the 3rd grade told me to( another appeal to authority ), I'm not writing desperate screeds admonishing everyone about being bad people because they aren't listening to…

Does HN truncate double spaces? Testing this now. Otherwise I'm only picking up one space after your sentences. Edit: Looks like it does. Yay PG! Edit2: Looks like I forgot some basics of HTML. My 14 year old self would be very disappointed.

Actually, its your browser that renders multiple spaces as a single space. If you want multiple spaces in your HTML you have to use the non-breakable space tag " ".

Re: Why you should never, ever use two spaces after a period

#57
post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Double spacing helps to set sentences off from each other visually. I prefer reading material that's double-spaced, so that's the way I prefer to write. It's also to some extent simply out of habit. But even if my only reason was because Miss Millie in the 3rd grade told me to( another appeal to authority ), I'm not writing desperate screeds admonishing everyone about being bad people because they aren't listening to…

Does HN truncate double spaces? Testing this now. Otherwise I'm only picking up one space after your sentences. Edit: Looks like it does. Yay PG! Edit2: Looks like I forgot some basics of HTML. My 14 year old self would be very disappointed.

The HTML rendering engine in your browser actually consolidates each block of white space into a single visible space character. If you view source, there are two spaces there. So, there's a good reason not to use two spaces, as the web will only show the one.

Re: Why you should never, ever use two spaces after a period

#58
post #31
post #4

It seems that the reason it's wrong is that typographers say it is. The author has not given an actual reason , other than appeal to authority. I will continue to double-space until I'm dead.

> I will continue to double-space until I'm dead. Do you have a reason for doing so?

The reason is clear: because it assists readability, and costs me nothing.

Re: Why you should never, ever use two spaces after a period

#59
Multiple consecutive spaces == 1 space, in the same way 0 + 0 + 0 = 0. Put another way, 3 x 0 is not greater than 1 x 0. Even in typography or typesetting, the goal is to provide a single space, but to do it in a proportion to the surrounding letters that is appropriate for the context. This goal isn't any less important when an inflexible typesetting environment forces you to use a narrow range of discreet units.

I've edited too many documents to count, but in nearly all cases, it was a default software setting that inserted extra space after a period, before the next sentence. The author can't reliably claim to know how much space Assange chose to use, any more than he can affect how his own text will be presented after it is processed for publication. It's an implementation detail that often gets transformed (by software and/or humans) as it makes its way through various systems.

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