A truly insignificant debate. . . punctuation
 

Last year some style guide (could have been the NY Times?) announced that the debate had come to an end, and that proper usage was a single space after periods, between sentences. I have been a two space guy for years. I just think it make things much easier to read. I refuse to give in, and hate reading single spaced documents. Any I one of the few people who cares about this pressing issue of the day?

Like you, when I was taught typing in high school the rule was always double-space. After working for several publications over the years, I think there's still no definitive right or wrong. If pubs use a style guide, it depends on which one they adhere to, which might even be their own custom guidelines. The Chicago Manual of Style and Strunk and White's Elements of Style are two other very prominent ones. So NYT isn't the last word.

My guess is their determination has to do with the prevalence of online content being delivered today. HTML ignores more than one consecutive space in in-line text; so, rendering consecutive multiple spaces requires custom formatting or special HTML characters that are just too much extra work for users to bother with.

For example, your post is single-spaced when you probably originally typed two spaces after each period!

Damm them . . . it was double spaced!

One space after a comma, two spaces after a period. One space after a semicolon, two spaces after a colon. That’s how I’ve always known it to be.

The irony, that you post about having two spaces after a period, and the program automatically converts it to one space. You cannot make this up.

Yep, and I was super careful to double space so I wouldn’t be called on it.

I smell a class action lawsuit.

No doubt. The resident experts on this forum can fill us in.

Your double spaces are there, but HTML will not display them unless you use a special nonbreaking space tag.

Soon the machines will write your entire posts for you!

The one on the right is No. 5 on Fluffy's levels of fatness:

1. Big

2. Healthy

3. Husky

4. Fluffy

5. Damn!!!

6. Oh, Hell No!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dlKzfwJOFUQ

Single space = no beer
Double space = not enough beer in the world


That said, I have generally single spaced periods and commas.
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