Space Invaders

[daftandbarmy]

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

Last month, Gawker published a series of messages that WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange had once written to a 19-year-old girl he'd become infatuated with. Gawker called the e-mails "creepy," "lovesick," and "stalkery"; I'd add overwrought, self-important, and dorky. ("Our intimacy seems like the memory of a strange dream to me," went a typical line.) Still, given all we've heard about Assange's puffed-up personality, the substance of his e-mail was pretty unsurprising. What really surprised me was his typography.

Here's a fellow who's been using computers since at least the mid-1980s, a guy whose globetrotting tech-wizardry has come to symbolize all that's revolutionary about the digital age. Yet when he sits down to type, Julian Assange reverts to an antiquated habit that would not have been out of place in the secretarial pools of the 1950s: He uses two spaces after every period. Which—for the record—is totally, completely, utterly, and inarguably wrong.

http://www.slate.com/id/2281146/

 

[vonGarvin]

What a bullshit article.  It pontificates that only one space appears at the end of a sentence, and then proceeds to quote the Modern Language Association Handbook as a reference.  Here's what I found in that reference:

Publications in the United States today usually have the same spacing after a punctuation mark as between words on the same line. Since word processors make available the same fonts used by typesetters for printed works, many writers, influenced by the look of typeset publications, now leave only one space after a concluding punctuation mark. In addition, most publishers' guidelines for preparing electronic manuscripts ask authors to type only the spaces that are to appear in print.

Because it is increasingly common for papers and manuscripts to be prepared with a single space after all punctuation marks, this spacing is shown in the examples in the MLA Handbook and the MLA Style Manual. As a practical matter, however, there is nothing wrong with using two spaces after concluding punctuation marks unless an instructor or editor requests that you do otherwise.

 

[bLUE fOX]

The CFSAL writers guide calls for the double space as well.
http://www.cmrsj-rmcsj.forces.gc.ca/cmr-rmc/oar-wt/doc/gem-mwg-eng.pdf

 

[George Wallace]

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

Last month,...............


Here's a fellow who's been using computers since at least the mid-1980s, a guy whose globetrotting tech-wizardry has come to symbolize all that's revolutionary about the digital age. Yet when he sits down to type, Julian Assange reverts to an antiquated habit that would not have been out of place in the secretarial pools of the 1950s: He uses two spaces after every period. Which—for the record—is totally, completely, utterly, and inarguably wrong.

http://www.slate.com/id/2281146/

Hey!  WAIT!

A double return after the conclusion of a paragraph is a totally antiquated habit as well.  The author of this article is inarguably wrong!







>

 

[Shamrock]

Hey!  WAIT!

A double return after the conclusion of a paragraph is a totally antiquated habit as well.  The author of this article is inarguably wrong!

Double return or indent the next paragraph, but never both.