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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

#161

Post by [deleted] »

apotheon wrote: post #136
haberman wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The HTML rendering engine in your browser actually consolidates each block of white space into a single visible space character. I don't believe that's true when the browser decides to break the line between the two spaces -- see: http://i.imgur.com/MksV7.png (which I took from http://www.jeanhsu.com/?p=229 ) So I guess you could argue that putting two spaces in HTML is strictly a negative: it does nothing, except…

There's something kooky going on with that page. I think the CMS used for that site must be substituting one type of space character with another in Unicode, or something like that, so that the browser does not "know" how to collapse the two whitespace characters into a single whitespace character. When I copy the two whitespace characters between sentences there into separate text files that contain nothing but thos…

[deleted]

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

#162

Post by haberman »

apotheon wrote: post #136
haberman wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The HTML rendering engine in your browser actually consolidates each block of white space into a single visible space character. I don't believe that's true when the browser decides to break the line between the two spaces -- see: http://i.imgur.com/MksV7.png (which I took from http://www.jeanhsu.com/?p=229 ) So I guess you could argue that putting two spaces in HTML is strictly a negative: it does nothing, except…

There's something kooky going on with that page. I think the CMS used for that site must be substituting one type of space character with another in Unicode, or something like that, so that the browser does not "know" how to collapse the two whitespace characters into a single whitespace character. When I copy the two whitespace characters between sentences there into separate text files that contain nothing but thos…

Hmm, interesting. Whatever it is, it also happens for me in Gmail, so perhaps Gmail does the same thing. It's in Gmail that it really bugs me.

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

#163

Post by haberman »

apotheon wrote: post #136
haberman wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The HTML rendering engine in your browser actually consolidates each block of white space into a single visible space character. I don't believe that's true when the browser decides to break the line between the two spaces -- see: http://i.imgur.com/MksV7.png (which I took from http://www.jeanhsu.com/?p=229 ) So I guess you could argue that putting two spaces in HTML is strictly a negative: it does nothing, except…

There's something kooky going on with that page. I think the CMS used for that site must be substituting one type of space character with another in Unicode, or something like that, so that the browser does not "know" how to collapse the two whitespace characters into a single whitespace character. When I copy the two whitespace characters between sentences there into separate text files that contain nothing but thos…

Indeed, performing a hex dump, the second space seems to have been replaced with 0xc2 0xa0, which is UTF-8 for:

U+00A0 NO-BREAK SPACE character

Which is the same as HTML entity  

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

#164

Post by apotheon »

haberman wrote: post #163
apotheon wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's something kooky going on with that page. I think the CMS used for that site must be substituting one type of space character with another in Unicode, or something like that, so that the browser does not "know" how to collapse the two whitespace characters into a single whitespace character. When I copy the two whitespace characters between sentences there into separate text files that contain nothing but thos…

Indeed, performing a hex dump, the second space seems to have been replaced with 0xc2 0xa0, which is UTF-8 for: U+00A0 NO-BREAK SPACE character Which is the same as HTML entity  

Thanks for taking it a step further. I was to lazy to go that extra mile.

Well . . . several keystrokes, anyway, plus a Google lookup.

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

#165

Post by apotheon »

barrkel wrote: post #155
apotheon wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

. . . or a programmer, accustomed to using monospace fonts, who has learned to touch-type and hits the space bar twice as a matter of habit. When I see one space, I tend to suspect the writer is not a (very good, anyway) programmer, and is not particularly concerned with how text looks in reader software that uses monospace fonts -- and probably learned to type on a cellphone. I also expect to see such people spell "…

I try to use evidence, rather than using confirmation bias ("expect to see").

That doesn't seem likely, given your preceding comment.

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

#167

Post by apotheon »

rhoeft wrote: post #29

This is a software problem. Programs that display proportional text should recognize one or more spaces after a period as a sentence break and should render appropriately.

. . . unless it's not a sentence break, as in the case of "Mrs. Rigsby" or "etc. etc. etc.", or any of dozens of other options.

On the other hand, software configured to recognize two spaces after a period is far more likely to work properly for identifying sentence endings, as long as you type two spaces between sentences.

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

#168

Post by apotheon »

It suddenly occurs to me to ask whether those friends will ever invite him to dinner with them again. He turned their friendly dinner conversation into an excuse to call them Luddites stuck in the 19th century.

"You're off my Thanksgiving invitation list, Farhad."

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

#169

Post by apotheon »

isleyaardvark wrote: post #159
apotheon wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's cheaper to print a 310 page book than a 360 page book. That's why.

I'm willing to bet that some back of the envelope calculation would show that the savings are not anywhere near that many pages, and that the pages saved by either reducing the font size or the measure of the lines would dwarf the savings from single spaces after periods.

I think it would be near that many pages, for many books around that size, at least. It depends in large part on how many sentences you fit on a page, after all.

Anyway, you're claiming a false dichotomy there. Standardizing on single spaces is an incredibly easy fix if you want to minimize space used up, and the space savings far outweigh the effort (regardless of the cost in readability). In fact, shrinking typefaces will damage readability more quickly than eliminating the second space between sentences -- so if you're going to shrink text, you might as well wipe out a bunch of spaces while you're at it.

It's silly to talk about whether shrinking margins would save more space than getting rid of "extra" spaces between sentences, when it's quite simple to get rid of the spaces whether you shrink the margins or not.

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

#170

Post by barrkel »

apotheon wrote: post #165
barrkel wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I try to use evidence, rather than using confirmation bias ("expect to see").

That doesn't seem likely, given your preceding comment.

No, I don't think a Bayesian evidence update implies confirmation bias; but your comment directly implied confirmation bias, i.e. explicitly looking for a specific piece of evidence on the basis of a different piece of evidence. That behaviour will tend to multiply the effect of any given piece of evidence, because while you're busy looking for that confirmation, you'll be less open to seeing the other side.

Ironically, the easiest way to end a sentence with a period and continue the next (after a single space) on an Android phone keyboard is to tap the space bar twice.

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