One vs. two spaces

[Bob The Mercenary]

http://www.slate.com/toolbar.aspx?action=print&id=2281146

The problem with typewriters was that they used monospaced type—that is, every character occupied an equal amount of horizontal space. This bucked a long tradition of proportional typesetting, in which skinny characters (like I or 1) were given less space than fat ones (like W or M). Monospaced type gives you text that looks "loose" and uneven; there's a lot of white space between characters and words, so it's more difficult to spot the spaces between sentences immediately. Hence the adoption of the two-space rule—on a typewriter, an extra space after a sentence makes text easier to read. Here's the thing, though: Monospaced fonts went out in the 1970s. First electric typewriters and then computers began to offer people ways to create text using proportional fonts. Today nearly every font on your PC is proportional. (Courier is the one major exception.) Because we've all switched to modern fonts, adding two spaces after a period no longer enhances readability, typographers say. It diminishes it.

Every teacher and professor I have ever had have been LYING TO ME?! This is, like, big news. Like, Pluto isn't a planet anymore news. My mind is blown.

Meh, even knowing this I'll still instinctively hit the space bar twice after a period. Our corrupt education system has ingrained this in our skulls. It has become such a part of our being it's worse than trying to quit smoking. Have you tried typing a sentence without double-spacing it? It feels so unnatural. Like I'm skipping a step.

[Flarecobra]

That was never taught to me in school... it was always one space.

[Fenris]

I hear you. I'm the same way-(un)fortunately NPF automatically removes the double space for some technical reason I read once but wasn't intrigued enough to commit to memory.

[Professor Smarmiarty]

Two spaces 4eva. Give me a one spaced essay, I'll totallly circle the space and make a snarky comment.

[rpgdemon]

I double space after every period. It's what I was taught. Also, I like to use Courier font.

[Krylo]

Two spaces 4eva. Give me a one spaced essay, I'll totallly circle the space and make a snarky comment.
Don't you also do this when they're double spaced?

[Bob The Mercenary]

Two spaces 4eva. Give me a one spaced essay, I'll totallly circle the space and make a snarky comment.

That's another thing! If I actually adopted the correct way in middle or high school, I'd be penalized for it!

[McTahr]

Pretty sure it changed a long while back. I was taught two spaces early on and then the education system deemed it important enough to tell me one space was the new rule.

I also still like certain monospaced fonts because fuck you that's why.

[Bells]

screw y'all! Monospace forever rules!

I was never taught this, but also... it' kinda weird in a way, if i was supposed to tap the spacebar twice, why won't writing software come programmed to double the space of one tap...?

[Bob The Mercenary]

I was never taught this, but also... it' kinda weird in a way, if i was supposed to tap the spacebar twice, why won't writing software come programmed to double the space of one tap...?

http://profile.ak.fbcdn.net/hprofile-ak-snc4/hs358.snc4/41815_2200708052_9871_n.jpg

[Professor Smarmiarty]

Don't you also do this when they're double spaced?

Shhhh! Don't tell everybody my secrets. Like half of grad school is working out how to be the most passive-aggressive marker possible without the higher ups noticing.
All my posts are double spaced. Notice how beautiful that sentence break is. How soothing.

[rpgdemon]

screw y'all! Monospace forever rules!

I was never taught this, but also... it' kinda weird in a way, if i was supposed to tap the spacebar twice, why won't writing software come programmed to double the space of one tap...?

If that happened, you'd get double spaces between words.

[synkr0nized]

I posted about why this happens anywhere on the Internet, Fenris, but I don't currently feel like browsing my own post history. Long story short extra whitespace isn't rendered in browsers unless you force it to be.



e: I just took like 20 minutes and didn't find the thread I was thinking of, and apathy has set in.

[Loyal]

I've never heard of this two-space nonsense and I've never, ever had difficulty locating the end of a sentence (or otherwise reading stuff) in a monospace font. And I goddamn love me some monospace fonts.

[synkr0nized]

For reference, how many of you actually ever have used a typewriter? Or how about just early-as-shit word processors (even before Word Perfect on DOS)?

[Torque]

2 spaces??? Absurd! Who in their right mind double fucking taps the space bar at the end of a sentence? That's way too much like work. Pfft. And who actually got "taught" typing in school anyway? Shit, when I was in school we still had these things called pencils that everyone was using.
Shit every household had upwards of like.... 10 pencils.
Per person!

[synkr0nized]

Speaking of pencils, I never got why people were running around without No. 2s.

[Professor Smarmiarty]

I've used a typewriter but more for shits and giggles than serious work. I wrote like a report on one in high school. Best thing ever was it had an erase key which would take back a letter if you hit it fast enough. AMAZING.
Also I had some crazy word processors when I was a young kid on DOS platforms. Mostly I remember they all had ridiculously garish colours.

[McTahr]

Diddled on a word processor before laptops caught on because I was a young lad with big author dreams. Had a typewriter before that, and I'm not even as ridiculously old as some people.

Both were god awful to use. Especially considering the typewriter lacked that tape-y shit that let you backspace.

[Marc v4.0]

I was never taught or expected to know how to use a..what did you call it?...a typewriter.

Ok, so I did have to use one a few times, but I was never taught by anyone anywhere in the history of my ever EVER to double space, nor do I have some strange condition that makes finding the end of a statement a fucking chore, because by the time I was born they had invented ending punctuations.

[Loyal]

For reference, how many of you actually ever have used a typewriter? Or how about just early-as-shit word processors (even before Word Perfect on DOS)?http://img16.imageshack.us/img16/7524/28403829.jpg
I used it to type a lot of homework in grade school.

[Bobbey]

I've never heard of this rule before, although it's probably because I was in a French school or something. I naturally always put one space at the end of a sentence, since I figured it just looks nicer this way; no one ever told me to do it a certain way. Two spaces I find being too much and unnatural.

[synkr0nized]

Some folks appear to be deeply offended by the idea of double-tapping the largest key on the keyboard.


Also, Marc: graphite scale (http://www.pencils.com/hb-graphite-grading-scale)

[Krylo]

I've used a typewriter, as a kid. I remember the white out and stuff being used for erasing and the clackity clack clack. It was my mom's if I remember right.

I was just a munchkin though, it probably hardly counts.

Though my first computer predated MS DOS. Not because MS DOS didn't exist yet, but because my computer illiterate grandparents bought it for me.

[CelesJessa]

For reference, how many of you actually ever have used a typewriter? Or how about just early-as-shit word processors (even before Word Perfect on DOS)?

I used a typewriter, but it was mostly because my family had one before we got the computer (Windows 3.1). Like Krylo though I was just a little kid though so I don't think it counts. I didn't write anything important on it.

Also I never double spaced.

[Amake]

Funny how half of everyone seems to do this double tapping thing without being able to help it, and the other half has never heard of it. Yeah I've never heard of it either. Probably I'm too old school, since my teachers were more concerned with handwriting than with typing.

[bluestarultor]

Just a technical note, but that Courier New comment is bull. By my count, monospaced fonts defaulted into Windows include: Bitstream Vera Sans Mono, Consolas, Courier New, Deja Vu Sans Mono, Lucida Console, Lucida Sans Typewriter, Miriam Fixed, OCR A Extended, and Simplified Arabic Fixed, showing no language is safe.


On that note, I was taught two spaces and always use that unless specifically directed otherwise. It's easier to read in papers and my own notes to myself.

HTML is limited in that it treats all white space characters as equal and trims them all down to just one in the display. The only way to avoid that is to use non-breaking space characters, which also have the side effect of acting like a letter connecting the words they're used between (which can be pretty useful, actually).

[Sithdarth]

I vaguely remember being told to do it then never bothering and no one ever caring that I never bothered. I was a horrible typist in high school anyway. This actually reminds me of the whole cursive vs print thing. When I was taught cursive we were instructed to do all writing ever in cursive. Then I hit high school and no one cared but it was so ingrained in me I couldn't stop. To this day it takes considerable effort to print. Although my cursive has evolved to incorporate the odd print character here or there. It depends on several different parameters if a particular character ends up being print or not. It's almost unpredictable.

Also, now that you guys have made me think about how I type I realize that somehow I learned how to type without looking at my fingers and I have no idea when that happened. But being aware of it is now messing with my ability to do it.

[Geminex]

Double space?
How... barbaric.

[Bells]

For reference, how many of you actually ever have used a typewriter? Or how about just early-as-shit word processors (even before Word Perfect on DOS)?

*raises hand* both regular and eletric!

[Terisse]

I actually do remember having it taught to me in my word processing class (easy grade in an easy class) and I still never did it. That, and even with slowly failing eyesight, I have no problem at all with monospace fonts, reading, or otherwise.

Then again, I used to have an ancient typewriter that I would actually do reports on when someone else was using the PC. It far too much fun for my teacher to realize that I was using some archaic method.

[Azisien]

I was taught on two spaces. But that's old news man!

The only interesting facet I have in regards to typing is that my ability to type was completely self-taught. So I only type with my two index fingers, and thumb the space bar. Apparently you're taught to use all of your fingers? Crazy!

Despite my 6-finger deficit, I still maintain speeds of 80-90wpm. Such a drop from my mudding days.

[PyrosNine]

I used my mom's typewriter long before we ever had a PC. And in my typing class, they told me to do the double space thing, but I forgot why so I stopped doing it. Good to be reminded that what I was told to do was useless, becuase I forgot to do it!

It's like skipping classes when you don't know it was MLK day! (which I totally did)

[phil_]

I got a hunch as to why those of us who were taught to double-space after sentences but no longer double-space after sentences forgot about double-spacing after sentences. Microsoft Word used to auto-correct single spaces after a sentence into double-spaces. Bam.

[Doc ock rokc]

I was taught this intially because one of my teachers actually made me use a old type writer in one of my classes in order to decipher what I was writing. I was thought this when I was placed in-front of a computer and when I was writing's in elementary school. and when they sent me to another elementary school they basically said,"Fuck that." So Bob I was like you when I first learned and still double space in my handwriting as it still is like a Monospaced font



The only interesting facet I have in regards to typing is that my ability to type was completely self-taught. So I only type with my two index fingers, and thumb the space bar. Apparently you're taught to use all of your fingers? Crazy!

Despite my 6-finger deficit, I still maintain speeds of 80-90wpm. Such a drop from my mudding days.
Thats cool I had a friend type like you. he outpaced a teacher in a typing test to earn the right to do it.
I personally learned to type onehanded and can keep a rather steady pace of 40 wpm with just one hand.

[synkr0nized]

I personally learned to type onehanded and can keep a rather steady pace of 40 wpm with just one hand.

I was really big into cybersex. .

[Doc ock rokc]

actually its because when I first learned to type was just after My brother accidentally slammed a car door on my left hand cracking some bones and making typing with two hands a agonizing process

[Specterbane]

Two spaces would just be too pretentious for me. I remember being taught that in grade school and the only teacher that ever took off for it was kind of a bitch, hence my apathy.

Even being taught typing in school I didn't actually learn to type quickly till I started IMing people WITHOUT using any short-hand/text speak. (seriously I never bothered to learn it, to this day I still have to look up internet acronyms like IMHO and IIRC)

[tacticslion]

Me, I was taught double-spacing and often do from habit, but IMing, certain college classes (penalizing double spacing), other personal experiments, and dyslexia have allowed me the freedom to do as I please much of the time. It's not so much that it's pretentious, but rather serves a similar purpose to paragraph breaks. Sure, one can read grammar and punctuation (which are important to bring out the proper emotion!) but the double-space helps quickly recognize the end of a thought. Also, yeah, WORD - at least mine - auto-corrects to double-space when I only type one.

I hear you. I'm the same way-(un)fortunately NPF automatically removes the double space for some technical reason I read once but wasn't intrigued enough to commit to memory.

I posted about why this happens anywhere on the Internet, Fenris, but I don't currently feel like browsing my own post history. Long story short extra whitespace isn't rendered in browsers unless you force it to be.

e: I just took like 20 minutes and didn't find the thread I was thinking of, and apathy has set in.


This, right here, is the reason it's impossible to make good D&D (tm) charts on this site! Gah! WHY CAN'T I MAKE THEM LOOK PRETTY LIKE THEY DO IN MY HEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAD?!

For reference, how many of you actually ever have used a typewriter? Or how about just early-as-shit word processors (even before Word Perfect on DOS)?

That'd be me, on both accounts. 90's-era former-Soviet Union didn't have much great advanced tech. Most of my friends (when we were stateside) had these neato-looking word processors, of which I was always jealous.
Best thing ever was it had an erase key which would take back a letter if you hit it fast enough. AMAZING. Truer words, Smarty, truer words...

...I was taught cursive we were instructed to do all writing ever in cursive. ... To this day it takes considerable effort to print. Although my cursive has evolved to incorporate the odd print character here or there. It depends on several different parameters if a particular character ends up being print or not. It's almost unpredictable.

I know, right? It's weird how the two blend sometimes. Mine is kind of the opposite of yours - mostly-but-not-quite print (much to my mother's chagrin) with an occasionally weirdly added cursive word (like the word "of" - it's darn near impossible not to write that one in cursive, for some reason). I was actually rather amazed several months back when, for the first time in years, I forced myself to write in cursive-only (teaching kids to do it, sadly, and forced to tell them it's the only way) and it came out surprisingly well. I had thought I'd shed the last vestiges of the formerly-ingrained talent in college. It's still slower than normal writing, but I'm picking up speed surprisingly quickly. Like riding a bike, I guess.

Also, now that you guys have made me think about how I type I realize that somehow I learned how to type without looking at my fingers and I have no idea when that happened. But being aware of it is now messing with my ability to do it. Just concentrate on not thinking about it and it'll be great again! Also, don't think about or visualize pink elephants! Just focus hard and I'm sure it'll work!

The only interesting facet I have in regards to typing is that my ability to type was completely self-taught. So I only type with my two index fingers, and thumb the space bar. Apparently you're taught to use all of your fingers? Crazy!

Despite my 6-finger deficit, I still maintain speeds of 80-90wpm. Such a drop from my mudding days.

This is actually like my wife. "Hunt and peck" some friends used to call it (though she really doesn't "hunt", as she knows were the keys are). She's quite good at it, but I've had a dilly of a time convincing her she'd be even faster if she only learned the proper configurations. Or rather, she believes me, but doesn't bother.

ALSO:
n reality however, there is no specific industry standard for the darkness of the mark to be left within the HB or any other hardness grade scale. Thus, a #2 or HB pencil from one brand will not necessarily leave the same mark as a #2 or HB pencil from another brand. Most pencil manufacturers set their own internal standards for graphite hardness grades and overall quality of the core, some differences are regional. In Japan, consumers tend to prefer softer darker leads; so an HB lead produced in Japan is generally softer and darker than an HB from European producers.

IT IS ALL A SCAM! MARC, YOU'RE RIGHT!

[Raiden]

I was taught two spaces at the end of every sentence, and it is so ingrained into my typing and writing that I will go back and make sure there are two spaces after a sentence. And I mean for any occasion. I do it for IMs, for papers, for quick notes, for texting, hell I'm doing it right now. If I even considered giving only one space at the end of my sentence in grade school I would have had a hell thrown upon me the likes of which hadn't been seen since Timmy ate the glue in class.

Kids today, too impatient to even type an extra space after a sentence. Your thumb is already there pressing the button for one space, just do it again. Hell, I don't even think about my thumb anymore, it presses the spacebar on its own. You kids just need to train your thumb better.

[Loyal]

Kids today, too impatient to even type an extra space after a sentence. Your thumb is already there pressing the button for one space, just do it again. Hell, I don't even think about my thumb anymore, it presses the spacebar on its own. You kids just need to train your thumb better.

You're being absurd.

[krogothwolf]

I always got in trouble for being lazy and only using one space, always lost marks too, stupid teachers were lying to me and docking me marks unfairly! Blasted Teachers!