Spaces between sentences
 

I was always taught that when typing, two spaces should be put between the end of a sentence and the start of the next. I've met many people that have heard either way, and I've noticed that vBulletin automatically reverts any double spaces to single spaces. Anyone have any light to shed on this, or have heard (or have links) of any authoritative statements on this?

I realize most people won't care, but I'm honestly curious.

I'm pretty sure that's the accepted usage, but it just doesn't look right on a message board.

I always type all my posts with double spaces too! I've just come to expect that it will revert to a single space but I do it anyway.

Actually, if you look at your post when you edit it, it will remember how many spaces you put. =)

Yeah, it's the HTML rendering that ignores any extra spaces you put. For example, there are twenty spaces between this sentence and the last, and it still shows as one. That's just how web browsers work. (if you try to indent a paragraph with tabs, the tabs will be ignored too)

When I type stuff as schoolwork, I use two spaces after periods as a habit because some professors require it as style, and it's just easier to do it across the board. Everywhere else, though, I just use one space because I'm lazy. CAN'T BE HAVING WITH EXTRANEOUS KEYSTROKES

Weird. So it's somehow the internet standard to have single spaces, or just *a* standard that they happen to hold to? I don't think about double spaces, they just happen by sheer habit and motion-memory. Or something.

CHz: Ah, didn't consider the HTML rendering aspect. Duh. :p

I've always used the single space between sentences method. To me, I think that makes the whole flow of a paragraph better and less disjointed by the extra space.

Well, if you really want double spaces then you can make a clear gif the width of two spaces and put it at the end of each sentence.

I've used two spaces after my periods for as long as I can remember. Like others here, I "double space", if you will" after every sentence in my posts, possibly just out of habit. I used to have two spaces after colons, too, but that was due to a misconception.

Mine are usually more than two.

I feel like these are like Megalith posts (excluding some lame-ass lines and the sort).

The single space between sentences kind of bothered me when I first started browsing forums, but I've grown used to it. I wasn't aware that some people did that on purpose offline. It seems like a pretty clear rule to me, and it's really annoying to see when critiquing classmates' papers.

I was taught that when using a typewriter, or a mono-spaced typeface, you should put two spaces after each period. When working in a modern word processor with proportional fonts and real kerning, use a single space.

I too have always used single spaces after a completed sentence. I was taught this at an extremely early age and never heard of any different practice until now. This subtle variation in our education amazes me since I never would have suspected others to learn otherwise! I'm also curious as to where everyone who learned other methods actually received their schooling. I hadn't thought of how important a role the location of one's education plays.

My early schooling was in New Jersey, New York, and Virginia. I suppose it could be an eastern thing, but I'd be interested in seeing the spread on it, too.

I actually asked someone about this who said that while in the past, two spaces after a period was standard...things are now changing that both one or two spaces are acceptable.

At any rate, two spaces for me. It breaks up sentences better.

I'm with Plarom. I've never heard of using two spaces after a period. Rarely wrote the essays I was assigned in school, but I read a lot of books and they all look like one space after a period, so that's what I do. The few essays I did type up and turn in, I was never called on only using a single space between sentences. Guess it does just depend on where you're taught, and I've lived in New York all my life.

From Wikipedia:

It really boils down to the fact that in professional typesetting, a full stop was the width of 1.5 spaces. On a typewriter, or when using a monospaced typeface, the best approximation of a full stop would have been two single spaces. Modern word processers with proportional fonts can correctly render the 1.5 space full stop after a period, so the use of a "double space" is unnecessary.

I was taught in college (UNC) to use 2 spaces after a period. I've spent the past 4 years proofreading audit reports for the federal government, and that's what most everyone in the office does.

Crazy... I've always used just a single space after any sentence, but I'm starting to wonder if it's a higher form of "grammar etiquette" to use two. I've never heard of that before, though it makes sense with things like typewriters I suppose.

I've heard of the double space thing, but I never took it to heart or anything when I type. I've always used a single space after a period. Anything more than that, and Microsoft Word would tell me I'm wrong. Either way, it just looks too weird for me.

I personally learned how to type using the double space method first. But It never stuck with me and I just do single spaces now. I could do the 2 spaces, but I see no point to. The only thing I can't do is to put no spaces between sentences. ^.^

Single space for me. From what I remember from all my English classes its never been double space. It probably just depends on the teacher though... If that ever changed, it'd take so much effort for me to hit the space key twice after each sentence. I'd need to think about it, because of my one-space habits.

I always used to use two spaces but it's standard practice in professional letters and legal documents (The things I write the most) to put in only one these days so I find myself missing out the additional spaces most of the time now.

I think it's a complete and total waste of time to use two spaces, especially online. Guess what: the fancypants computar fonts are advanced enough and designed to be perfectly readable with one space, unlike hundred-year-old typewriters, or whatever the absurd two-space practice comes from.

I was taught on papers and essays, I should type in double spaced, but when it comes to typing online, I type in single space.

Two spaces after a period is just plain incorrect. The only reason that you would hit the space bar twice after a period when using an old-fashioned manual typewriter is because that uses fixed-width characters. When you're using a computer, or a modern electronic typewriter, the size of the space will be sufficient if you just hit it once.

http://www.webword.com/reports/period.html

That link should help to clear up any remaining confusion. It's entirely standard to use one space after a period, and there is a very good reason.

It just took a long while for this to become widely accepted and known. So basically when you've been tought two use two spaces, that's just because the person who tought you still has the old habit from using a typewriter.

Then again, using two spaces after each period for college papers amounted to whole words and sentences I never had to write. <3

Another one for always having single space. I hadn't heard of double space until university, and it's only been mentioned once ever, which I thought of as really weird. I know it's acceptable as long as you're consistent in whatever method, but double space is just too awkward for me. Plus it's an extra button press each time, so in the long run it's totally unnecessary. too weird for me, so it looks like an extra large gap whenever I see it.

I've had several writing courses in college, and I've always left one space after the period in a sentence. I was taught to use two spaces when I was in middle school, but I didn't really followed that rule and never got marked down for it either.

I was never taught to put two spaces after the period. But early in college, when a friend was watching me type up a paper (yeah, osnap, caught in the act of actually doing homework: I hate that), he went: "You don't put two spaces after your sentences?!" I figured it was just a sly trick to get just that little more to the length of your paper, then I realized it seemed to be the norm among everyone else I knew; so I now put two spaces in paper and things. Then again, in documentation and stuff I do at work, I haven't been putting two spaces since it the people there don't seem to do that as far as I've seen. When in Rome, amirite?

I have been taught as well to double space after complete sentences. I rarely do it though, and my friend who edits my papers before I submit them adds the second space. Thanks Ionuk_tomb!

I had never heard of the two-space rule until I looked at my boyfriend's old college papers and then again recently when I proofread a friend's essay. I was an English major and I just finished a graduate thesis, and none of the comments ever mentioned that I should have used two spaces. I've studied several publishing style guides and have worked as an editor for the military and for K-12 standardized tests, and double spaces were always removed. Also, I've been looking through submission guidelines to academic journals and magazines/newspapers, and I haven't seen anything mention a preference one way or the other.

It really does seem like the idea originated with the typewriter, though at 28 I'm old enough to have used them and to have been around people who regularly used them, and I still don't remember hearing about the rule. Maybe I stopped remembering or caring once computers took over my life :D

Hmm, well I've always used double spaces, which I'm pretty sure I learned in my elementry school's typing class. I never even noticed that double spaces were converted to single spaces on forums...all this time I've been typing with two and never noticed it.

I always thought that double spaces after periods were the proper way to do it and that anyone that didn't is just lazy/uneducated/etc. Although since I don't even notice I guess it didn't really make a difference either way.

I've always been a firm believer of double spaces after a period. I once got into a fist fight over this matter.

That doesn't make it incorrect--just outdated. I STILL hit the space bar twice when I type because that's how I was taught. I'm 38 years old, and I learned in grade school to hit the bar twice. This practice continued in high school when I took *gasp* a typing course. In addition, we had computers to write papers on, and our teachers NEVER told us to stop typing that way.

The reason I was given is this:
Term papers and official documents are meant to be thoroughly read, and creating that extra space causes the reader to pause over the sentence just read.

Whether this is true or not--I have no clue. But, by this point in my life, it's an old habit.

Oh, and people do realize that there are people who prefer using a typewriter and not a computer, right?

I was taught as a kid to put spaces between words by placing a thumb in between. Perhaps that may have been just an exercise for me to build the habit of putting spaces in between words. Otherwise, single spaces are standard. Unless of course it's for some kind of a report that the teacher is going to mark and he/she wants double spaces between words, so that he/she can mark it more easily? This goes for both vertical and horizontal, although vertical is more common. BTW, this was from both writing and typing classes.

Double spacing is pointless online, since HTML parsers will remove extra spaces anyway (I can see some of you are still typing double spaces!)

It's pretty redundant on paper, too. I've never been taught the double spacing rule.

I've never, ever heard of this double space rule. For lack of a better way to describe something, it just seems stupid and pointless. :/

Is it an American thing?

I had never heard of this rule before reading this thread - seriously.

Seems like it's achaic and needless in today's professional world, considering most of us us word processors or something of that ilk in lieu of typewriters or what have you.

This isn't WW2. We have computers now.

I'll grudgingly acknowledge the distinction between those two. However, I maintain that if you are writing in a professional context it would be incorrect, by means of being outdated. When writing in a more personal context, it is unimportant if you employ outdated styles. I'd also argue that the very fact that most web browsers will convert a double space following a period to a single implies that there is a general acceptance of the former convention as being incorrect.

When I was in high-school and took a typing course, I was also tought to hit the space bar twice following a period. It is still eminently the correct thing to do when using a manual typewriter or an older electronic. typewriter. If you were primarily instructed on the basics of typing using such a device, then you were instructed correctly.

In my opinion, that would be because your teachers were unaware of the differences between typing using a computer and typeing using a computer. That's because it took a while after the introduction of the computer word processor for the change in conventions to become generally accepted.

Teachers aren't perfect. What they tought you was how they had been trained. It's not realistic to expect them to know every detail of any recent changes to the generally accepted style guidelines. At the time when you were in school, it would have been a very recent change. It may even have been a change that was still to come. The earliest computer word processors may not have exhibited this behaviour. Modern ones do.

Modern electronic typewriters also insert the correct size of space with only a single press of the spacebar. There may be people who prefer using a manual typewriter, of course, and for them it would be correct to hit the space bar twice. The correct convention depends on the device you are using to produce your typescript.

I used to always just put one space between sentences. But my mom who was a highschool band teacher (she was also an english teacher, but the school she was at only needed a band teacher) for a few years, and she taught me at a young age to always put two spaces after a period. To this day it's so firmly engrained into my mind that i do it without thinking anymore.

I find it interesting that those of us who consistently use the double space are so vociferous in our defense of it, while those who don't (and especially those who have never heard of it) are so adamant that it's archaic at best, and mostly idiotic. I will likely continue to use the double space for the indefinite future, as it is purely habit, but I see either way how it really doesn't make much of a difference.

Im still used to using double spaces after each sentence, it just feels and looks right. It feels confusing when I try to read reports/memos with one space after each sentence.

I usually put spaces between every few sentences...


...like so(not exactly paragraph style, just every few sentences), but after each sentence I usually just use a single space. I've never known it was supposed to be done another way.

I doublespace after fullstops, too. It’s just something I’ve become used to, and like others, I often find it difficult to read documents (offline) or emails where sentences are followed by single spaces or are just simply full of haphazard spacing.

I single space and always have. I'm 20 years old but i have heard of other people my age using double spacing. I got into a fight the other day over which way was right with one of my team members for a project. Too bad i didn't have this information then so i could have proved i was right ;) . Good to know i have been doing it right.

I was taught 2, but then my Enlish prof. told me that one or two is allowed, as long as you are consistent throughout the entire paper...

Except that HTML in general ignores the number of spaces you place it, be it two or twenty, so I don't know how good of argument that is.

I've always used two spaces because I find it easier to read a printed document which has two over one since I can tend to skim through sentences without concentrating as much.

Also, as to whoever mentioned scholarly journals, I don't think it really matters which form you choose since they tend to use justified columns, so the number of spaces gets kinda evened out anyways.

I have always, and will always use single spaces between sentances. Seeing two spaces after a sentace is a pet peeve of mine, it just really irks me for some reason. I don't remember where I was taught to do it, but it's always been a part of how I type (and ARRRRGGGG HOW IT ANNOYS ME when people editting my written work change to double spaces... an easy fix but ARRRGGGGGGG)

Double spacing's a habit, since I end up doing it in Word and other documents where it counts. It pisses me off when I type at a forum that reverts to single spacing because it doesn't look as aesthetically pleasing to me.

Like now. Damn!

I'll fight you over it.

According to the MLA standards in use by my university and all the english classes in it, I'm supposed to put one space after a comma, and two spaces after a period. I've been in the habit of doing that since grade 8 anyhow. My grade 8 teacher taught me how to do that. Gotta love ingrained habits.

I have always used single spaces in my sentences, I haven't been taught any other way. There a few people that I know that have used double spacing in their sentences, but they tend to be of an "older generation".

I've never heard of two spaces. I've always been taught to use a single space. It's really odd hearing about this.


Edit: Found a link on it, http://desktoppub.about.com/cs/types...etwospaces.htm