How many spaces belong after a period?
General | January 17, 2010
You can add this to the “Things That Only Meg Would Care About Because She’s So Obsessive-Compulsive” list, but I have a question for you all: When you type, do you put two spaces or one after periods?
I’ve always single-spaced. I’m not sure where all the people who double-space learned to do that, because I’ve never come across a teacher who’s said, “Okay, kids, make sure you all hit the space bar twice after every period you type.” In fact, I generally find double spaces after periods distracting — I never notice single spaces, but with double spaces, my eyes somehow automatically focus on the blank spaces on the page. This happens especially with those old, early twentieth-century scholarly books that have entire oceans of space in between every sentence. Sometimes I notice it online and in emails, too. Distracting. (Ohmygod, see how much space there is between “too.” and “Distracting”? This is obviously a very big deal.)
You know what else is distracting? Yeah, better get back to my reading. Bye!
Hehe, I asked people this a while back. General consensus is that the two space thing comes from when people used typewriters. I personally have always used two spaces cause I think it spaces out sentences better and that’s how I was taught.
Double spacing after periods is almost as bad a justified text. Gaps in text are not cool.
I was under the impression that web browsers merged multiple spaces into one. Though, now that I just checked, the WordPress plugin, Typogrify, overrides that and just inserts a & nsbp; for me. It never bothered me until you pointed it out and now I can’t stop seeing all these double spaces!
Haha, the moment i saw the space between the “too.” and “Distracting” i was like OH NOOOOOOOOOO
I agree… why do people double space?! Or when people put a space between the end of a work and an exclamation or a question mark like “this !” wtf?!
Always have used, and always will use, one space. If I recall, two spaces were used back in typewriter times — typewriters use monospace fonts, and two spaces were used to clearly indicate a break between sentences, whereas now we don’t generally use monospace fonts when we type stuff up and one space is fine!
I don’t understand double spacing after a period either. It does sound logical to use them on a typewriter since they use monospace fonts, but on a computer… no.
Believe me, it can be worse. In my country we speak both Dutch and French (hooray… not). In French you actually put a space before a question mark, an exclamation mark and a colon. In Dutch, you don’t do this at all. It recently gave me a lot of work during a bilingual project at work. *sigh*
I’ve always learned to single space after a sentence. I think my computer teacher even emphasized putting only one space. Two spaces is distracting.
I…am a double spacer. D: It was how I was taught when I learned to type and it has been ingrained in my being. But after reading this and doing a bit of researching, I have learned that double spacing after a period is antiquated and you’re supposed to use only one space. So I’ll have to watch myself and make a note NOT to space twice. I’ve had the urge to do it every time so far in this comment…
Single-space for sure. I found out last semester that the new edition of the APA handbook requires double-spacing after periods, and I almost freaked out! xD It just doesn’t seem right.
As soon as I saw the title, I immediately thought ONE. Double-spacing after periods suckssss. I always think of it as an old-school thing my parents were taught back in the 50s
ONLY ONE!
I double space.
I learnt how to type on this program thingy that my mom installed on the picture and it’s just how I’ve always typed.
I double space. It was how I was taught when I first started writing papers and essays in MLA and APA styles, and also was how my mom was taught when she went back to University. The only place where I type one space is twitter, and I probably will continue to use double spacing till the day I die.
*shrugs* Doesn’t bother me when others use single spaces, this is just how I roll. ;P
Single spacer here!
I was taught to double space in school (they really drilled it into us!) but reading up on modern typography it seems that they’ve changed their policy on that and you should only single space.
It’s such a habit for me now, that I still double space
BUT on the internet it mostly doesn’t matter, since html ignores these things
I was taught 2 spaces after a period because it is a pause, and therefor it needs a longer space. Though with web forms and HTML you can’t use two spaces unless it is specifically programmed to take notice of it.
I single space, but my English teacher for pre-AP lit used double spacing and I know a couple of my friends did, too. It originated in the typewriter era, though, so it’s I’d say it’s definitely antiquated at this point.
My teachers taught me double space, and I’m really used to it. In fact, I just did it. I guess I’m just used to it :p
Friday, I had a student who didn’t put ANY space after his periods. And then I had to sit with him after the bell while he went through the spell checker for every single sentence and let it put the space in for him…
When there are two spaces after the period, I automatically assume it’s a formatting error, for example: what happens when you paste a .txt document from Notepad into MS Word. But for me, definitely 1 space only!