“Can I let you in on a secret?” blogged Farhad Manjoo on January 13, “Typing two spaces after a period is totally, completely, utterly, and inarguably wrong.”
Yesterday, I shared the link to Manjoo’s post on Facebook, confessing that I am a two-spaces-after-a-period woman. Here’s a bit of the conversation that followed.
Len: It’s mostly people over 40. Thank you for sharing this. We youngsters are tired of editing these spaces!
me2Len: This “thbbbbt” is for you.
Dianha: Ummm…. I’m under 40 and always leave two spaces after a period. It’s an ingrained typing rule and am just now learning that it is no longer acceptable. #wherehaveIbeen
Len: Yeah, we had keyboarding class in college, not typing.
Ann: I am waaay over 40, but the typographer in me cries inside whenever I see two spaces after a period in text. I cry inside a lot because it’s one of the standard search-and-replace tasks I have to perform. Another is replacing the period-period-period for ellipsis. Both these things break funny if you leave them in.
Faith: The two spaces after a period was standard until sometime during my time at the ELCA…..if my memory is correct. Or at least thatis when the one-space-after-a-period-police began patrolling the typed page. Ah, the important things in life! Let us just hope that the “excited mark” never gets policed or outlawed because I shall really be in trouble!!!
William: In spite of personal preferences, in which spaces between sentences deserve more space than is allocated for between single words, I have adopted the single-spacing trend, but I recognize that such things are >trends<.
Linda: The problem for editors is that some people consistently use one space; some people consistently use two spaces. Most people, however, use a mix of one and two spaces. AUAUAUAUGHGHGH.
William: I deal with inconsistencies in translations all the time. I agree. AUAUAUAUGHGHGH.
me2Ann: sorry to have made you cry. What’s the deal with ellipses, though? I think “. . .” has more chance of “breaking funny” than “…”.
Ann: The ellipsis is a single character. When you make it with three periods (…) or worse, periods and spaces ( . . . ), and it falls at the end of a line, it can break between dots. That’s bad. If you use the ellipsis (…), it can’t break.
[Side note: I am quite proud of using two special characters, the “en dash” and the “em dash” and feel superior to those who don’t use them. Now, I humbly realize that I should be using the special character for an ellipsis, not (…). ]
Julie reposted the link to the blog post, writing “This is most certainly long and most certainly true. Thanks for posting, Sue.” Her FB friends replied:
Nicole: Wow, I never realized that. Thanks for sharing! Wow, I had to go back both times and delete the extra space, that’s going to take me forever to stop doing!
Patricia: Somewhere along the way I was told 2 and don’t even recall where. This is going to be one hard habit to break.
Sheila: Unfortunately, they’re still teaching this in schools. I told my son to tell his teacher that we editors HATE this….
Melody: I’m convinced. No one could ever explain why what I had been taught by all my teachers (including my journalism advisor, when I was yearbook co-editor) was wrong. I’m willing to shift now. (As you can see from this post.) Such power you have!
Jean: OMG…that is one of my biggest pet peeves.
Nicole: Julie, I posted this link on my page and now some of my friends have also posted it on theirs, people are FREAKING OUT and arguing all over the place, lol, you created quite a buzz on facebook tonight!
Deb, reposting the link on her wall, wrote “AAGHH!! This is one of my all-time pet peeves when I get manuscripts. Just stop it, people.” Her FB friends replied:
Katie: I hated when I was doing both English and Communication papers in college and had to do MLA with two spaces and APA with one. Apparently the Comm major won out and I haven’t used two spaces since college. Glad I picked the “winning” side!
Syd: Well I was taught that in the “70’s”-didn’t realize I was stuck there!
Linda: I’m with you on that one. And that’s been true for 15 years or more. Old habits …
Heather: I learned on a manual typewriter and am too lazy to relearn a physical habit that was drilled into me in high school and perfected in college. So there :-p
Marian: Yay! Spread the Word!
Jacqueline: I’m gonna have to read that article, I’m in the same boat as Heather!
Lillian: Ditto Heather! If one space became the norm in the early 20th century, then my teachers were wrong too.
Syd: So what about the poor colon and semi-colon–do we change this approach also??
The fact that friends were buried under 20+ inches of snow yesterday has a lot to do with the amount of conversation generated by this blog post. Still, it struck a nerve. And, so, on this first day of Chinese New Year, I resolve to be a one-space-after-a-period woman. I started by searching my documents to find all the [.][space][space] and replace them with [.][space]. There are many, because it’s a hard habit to break.
–Sue Edison-Swift (2/3/2010)
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