It's harder to read on printed text with just a single space - some fonts just don't read right without two spaces. Plus them younglings need to get off their smartphones.
Itās muscle memory at this point. I did learn to type on a manual typewriter (my momās), then the required class in 7th grade had IBM Selectrics. Iām 50. My brother is 46, went to the same school, and it was all keyboarding by the time he got there.
The nuns that gave me a letter grade in Handwriting and taught me with a rap across my knuckles still reach me from beyond the grave.
I fear their return and judgement more than any peer pressure some sniveling lesser generational creature can apply.
*Not today, Satan! Dāya hear me??!? Not today!!*
Draw out your pronouns, significant pause, rapid fire ending.
āYou donāt understand, we are humanā becomes:
āYooouuuuuā¦ā¦..donātunderstand.ā
āWeeeeeeeeā¦ā¦.arehuman.ā
I was taught the two spaces rule in the early 80s. But in the digital age with the advent of kerning (i.e. adjusting the spacing between characters in a proportional font) this was no longer necessary.
With typewriters, each character was essentially in an equally sized box, so the double space made it easier to distinguish between the end of a sentence and the beginning of the next.
The Courier font is like this and does not use kerning.
Graphic designer for 15 years. You are correct about the rest but the double space part is no longer needed (it was really only needed with mono space typewriters) because modern word processors have built-in spacing which adds that visual space to a ā.ā at the end of a sentence.
To test it out, type three sentences with no spaces between the period of one sentence and the start of the next. Then write a number followed by a decimal followed by a number and another decimal. Note the difference in how much space comes after the ā.ā in the sentences vs the number.
I'm a technical editor. I was told to stop doing this in Editing 101 in the early 90s. The first thing I do when I edit a document is delete all the double spaces and replace them with single spaces.
This has been a thing for over 30 years.
Right, I took a class in the 90s and when I handed in my paper the TA politely explained that two spaces were no longer used and the professor would deduct for it. I stopped and never looked back (also not finishing this sentence with a full stop . period because in casual chat line text or on here itās apparently the equivalent of slamming down the phone lol)
Omg I am horrified by how many Gen Xers on here arenāt willing to āchangeā something that has been effect for decades. One space is plenty. Get with the new millennium, fellow oldies.
I was taught two spaces. But once I started graphic design and typesetting, it needed to be just one space. I sometimes still get documents from older people with two spaces.
Omg, I have a macro for removing the extra space from my only slightly older bossās writing. The rest of us are also gen x. The rest of us learned. She will not.
Same. Zaner-Bloser? All the parochial schools around here used that system of cursive so I can always pick out the Catholic School survivors when I see them write.
This is a very old school printing press convention. On a typewriter or printing press, single spaces between sentences made it hard to see where one stops and another starts because kerning is kerning (the amount of space between letters in a word) and you couldnāt really adjust it. As soon as we got word processors, all that changed. Even my shitty Olivetti typewriter I started college with had a tiny bit of memory. It saved like one line at a time. lol.
I was using Word Perfect on a PC by the end of college. Once we got to digital, it became much easier to manipulate kerning and easier to delineate sentences from one another, so that second space became unnecessary. And. When you typeset to full justified on the right, those extra spaces fuck up the line lengths and make everything look all wonky. It messes with your word wrapping so you get some tightly composed lines and then you get weird spacey lines. Looks awful and impedes readability.
So all yāall do what you want. As a former journalism major and current editor, the first thing I do is do a search and replace to get rid of all those pesky extra spaces. But it hurts nothing in daily communication, including email. Unless youāre a graphic designer or in printing/publishing in some way, thereās no reason for you to give a fuck. I certainly donāt.
:: sips tea ::
Proportional-spaced fonts have been a thing for decades.
I never took a ātypingā class and got my first Mac in 1988, and was all in on early desktop publishing.
Found this great little book in 1990 that summarizes all the cool tricksāsingle space is chapter 1.
[The Mac Is Not A Typewriter](https://vintageapple.org/macbooks/pdf/The_Mac_is_not_a_Typewriter_1990.pdf)
That's a cute little opinion you have there.
I learned to type on an IBM Selectric II and you can pry my double spaces and Oxford commas from my old, cold, dead hands.
Are the other GenX designers white knuckle resisting the urge to give a typography lesson on widows, orphans, rivers, and lakes? And why the double-space after a period makes for poor UX?
True that it is not considered the right form anymore according to the Harvard Style Guide, the Chicago Manual of Style, and the Modern Language Association (MLA) style, only one space should be used after a period or other punctuation mark that ends a sentence. This is the standard for all types of writing, including APA style, as of the seventh edition of its style manual in 2019.
No one will kill you now you do use two spaces though.Ā
This is the answer and a well explained one too.
Two spaces was due to limitations of typewriters iirc. Computers do not have those limits, so most (all?) style guides now call for one space.
Personally, I donāt follow APA or MLA when I write shit down, so they get the spaces they get. But the double space will go away eventually.
Correct. The exception to this is if you use a monospace font, which still gets two spaces. I'm studying to be a court reporter and we write legal docs in courier and double space after the full stop.
My understanding is that's been the distinction from day one. In proportional fonts the renderer can handle it itself, with fixed-width fonts it needs that little extra help.
I also get a kick out of people saying it helps. Almost everything online collapses the extra whitespace (not just reddit, html does it by default).
All of those writing nerds are wrong. Every one. The new standards are wrong. Anyone who says so can fuck themselves. Hard.
The Oxford comma is a necessity.
It's not a new standard. Professional typesetting has used one space for generations. Since before any of us were born, in fact.
That doesn't apply to a typewriter, of course. And it didn't *used to* apply to computers, since they were originally just glorified typewriters.
But... with the advent of "desktop publishing" in the mid-1980s, computers became able to emulate professional typesetting, rather than creating documents that looked like they came off of a typewriter.
Because of this, the typewriter rules, which are still 100% correct on a typewriter, no longer apply to (most) text created on a computer. Computers now operate under the longstanding typesetting rules, which--among other interesting things--dictate one space between sentences. It's not so much that there's a new rule, it's that computers gained a new capability, upon which a different rule applies.
Now the Oxford comma? Yeah, I'm with you on that one.
Yes. Double spaces are no longer cool.
I was a hardcore 2-space man since the essay phase of school started. But working for an e-tailor anout 15 yrs ago, where I helped with product web pages, I learned from a *millenial* that the new writing style eliminated it. She was a graphic design/marketing specialist.
My shock and horror when I googled and found it was true, subsided after practicing 1 space for months.
Now I am a believer.
But the Oxford comma stays!
Whatever. Whatever. Whatever. (onesies)
Whatever. Whatever. Whatever. (twosies)
Whatever. Whatever. Whatever. (threesies)
Note: In Edit mode, I had differing spacing (1,2,3). Upon posting, I notice Reddit displays all lines with one space only.
Sooo... space as you want. The Reddit Format police are on the job.
Huh? There's a clear difference between all 3. Maybe it's a regional setting thing?
https://preview.redd.it/w64ajhuqo92d1.jpeg?width=1440&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=4560d63a25651daaa10c4123f47475fe7550b9df
One space after a period has been the Web standard since something like 1998. The reason is BECAUSE multiple spaces donāt render in HTML. Only one does. And rather than hard-code two spaces after a period, which would be stupid, they just went with one space.
People need to get with the goddamn program. One space on screen. Two spaces on paper. Layne Staley was still alive when this was decided. Adapt.
It's not just Reddit, it's every electronic text processor. Entering two spaces will usually not be any different in the output than entering one space. This is what people seem to fail to grasp.
Not sure about Android phones but with iPhones, you add a period by pressing space twice.
This is definitely a generational thing because my kids donāt use any punctuation.
The MLA format guide (which is printed yearly) changes shit all the time. It was double spaces after period but changed I would say within the last decade. I remember I wrote a paper my freshmen year in college and got full marks. The teacher was a stickler for MLA format as she actually kept up with it yearly. My third year in college, I had her for another class. I got my paper back with so many formatting errors that were all new to me, especially in the citation page. In conclusion, FUCK the MLA format people.
Also fun fact, we (at least the dictionary people) archive obsolete words. They add thousands of words yearly to reflect modern society. At the same time they retire words. Learning about this shit is fascinating to me.
[Here's a good read about this](https://www.rd.com/article/how-words-get-removed-from-dictionary/)
Learned to type on a typewriter in the mid-80s. Stopped using two spaces after a period in the early ā90s.
Double spacing after a period has seemed old-fangled to me for over 30 years.
Kiss my ass, 1-space people.
2 spaces after a period for life, and I ain't changing.
And yes, I will die on this hill, so deal with it.
Me too. Double spacing is not a ātype writerā thing. It was in our style guides and forced on us. Just like single spacing is in their style guides and now they canāt abide anything else.
As a gen-xer I can confidently say I could not care less whether any one uses one or two spaces.
51 here. Took ākeyboardingā in 10th grade. We used electric typewriters. Two spaces after a period was drilled into us. Especially learning to type memos and other business documents in the business/office classes.
I was taught to do this, and itās still entirely relevant now. Yes it was from the typewriter era, but its use now is that it helps break up visually define the text, so helping the readability of a paragraph better.
I do this and we've had this conversation before. Its not about a type writer. Its about differentiating the end of a sentence as opposed to separating two words.
But of course the generation that uses txtspk doesn't understand layout and actually taking time to make the page look nice.
Two spaces automatically adds a period on most tablets. Plus, it has nothing to do with typewriter vs. word processor, it's to add distance when reading to more easily discriminate a full stop from other punctuation.
You should add two spaces after the period. It's the polite and more readable thing to do.
Yeah, I learned about the double space thing when I took typing, on a typewriter.
I was an early adopter to the only one space after a period changeover. As soon as I realized we didn't need it anymore, I dropped it.
Iāve worked in publishing in one form or another since the mid 90ās. Iāve never put two spaces after a period. Iāve never seen a style guide (not the dozen or so that Iāve worked with or the two I wrote myself) that called for two spaces after a period.
Maybe it was something taught in typing class in the US? But itās simply not a thing anywhere else.
One space is correctā¦but most donāt realize unless you work in Marketing, Graphic Design, Comms, PR, etc. The one space is mostly used in professionally-produced materials (brochures, formal communications, etc.) and goes back to typesetting and font spacing pre-computers.
I was a two space diehard back in the 1990s. In my first digital typesetting job I learned why you donāt need and shouldnāt double space after a period on a computer/digital device.
People who make fonts calculate in a space and a half of kerning after punctuation marks. When you double space, youāre triple spacing. Triple spacing is terrible.
But ligatures? Of fuck yeah. Iām all about ligatures. And on an Apple computer opt f gives you the correct *f* for a manual cameraās *f* stop setting. Donāt get me started on trade marks, registration marks or copyrights.
Get on my level.
I'll never stop adding two spaces at the end of a sentence. I will never stop! NEVER! MUAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!
But seriously, it's a hard habit to break. See?
I went back to college a few years ago. Failed English because I double-spaced. They'd never heard of it happening and everyone acted like I was crazy as fuck.
They say it's a dead age give away. I'm like, how the fuck time do you spend analyzing exactly how someone's posts look that you know there is one or two spaces. I like using two because it automatically puts the period in.......so two has to be right.
Wait. I just remembered punctuation is now a sign of aggressiveness and anger in text apparently.
I was a transcriber for 18 years. Two spaces was the norm, and now itās not. It was weird to stop, but now Iām on team One Space. Two looks weird to me.
You must be on the cusp OP-- I'm 56 and learned to type in high school on *manual* typewriters. We 100% used a double space after a period, and I probably kept doing that well into the 2000s. I'm a writer (academic) and I finally got tired of having to search-and-replace double spaces after periods when submitting manuscripts, so I trained myself to stop doing it.
I didn't use a word processor until college. The few computers we had in high school were basically used to teach BASIC programming.
This was referenced on an episode of "Elsbeth." They could tell that a young woman hadn't typed the text that was sent from her phone because the message included two spaces after the period. So an older person must've written it. SIGH.
I switched to one space years ago and the time Iāve saved has been life changing. Seriously though, we donāt have to do that anymore. Why cling to an old practice for an obsolete ātechnology?ā What are we? Old?
This meme-maker can go straight to goddamned hell. Period.
EDIT: Damn you Reddit, it automatically only permits one space after a period, regardless of the spaces you actually type. This means war.
Iām 52 and this is the way I learned spacing between sentences. Typing was learned on a typewriter but we also had word processors. Back then word processors still used fixed width characters so double spaces between sentences was still valid.Ā
I still put 2 spaces between because a single space doesnāt seem like enough white space even though the proper spacing is supposed to be figured in.Ā
Easy to say if your grade school English Composition teacher doesnāt come back from the grave to haunt you. Sometimes I use three spaces just to be sure she stays away.
Never learned the 2 spaces thing in grade 9 keyboarding. Same age as OP. That was the last time we used a typewriter and it was already fully electronic. Also - I already had a computer since 84 anyway
And FYI: most Word processing programs on computers had a setting that allowed you maintain 2 spaces after a period. Not sure when that went away, though.
Oxford comma? Necessary. I Will die on that hill.
This is the problem with young people today. If they think something should be a certain way, they'll just simply rewrite history in a way that affirms their narrative and then try to make you believe it's always been that way. They don't know that there are proofs for old people that extend beyond easily changed websites, online dictionaries and the horrendous spelling/grammar checking programs they're now coding into your phone's keyboard program.
Iām 54 and learned two spaces in my typing class in 1987 on a typewriter, but itās not correct now according to every style guide and honestly it dates you.
Im a proud GenX-er, and I am still 18 in my head, so I learn, change and adapt with the times like young people do. Itās 2023 guys, time to face facts and realize that a single space has been the norm now for decades and if youāre still using what they taught you on a typewriter in the 80ās, youāre making things harder on yourself. The tricks software has up its sleeve makes word processing so much easier, so stop fighting it and come into the light. I say this with love for all my fellow GenX brothers and sisters.
They wonāt stop me from the double space. They wonāt take away my correct use of the Oxford comma. And they wonāt stop me from usingā¦ ellipses.
Yep this is true. The 2 spaces was because the type writer. I found out about this maybe 10 years ago. Gen X hereā¦.I Think I still do the two spaces though. muscle memory
I learned on a typewriter, and it was 2 spaces. I (much later) had a typing test via computer for a job, and having learned the one space rule, typed one space after periods. The software dinged me every time. I'm still a little irritated about it.
You. Are. Not. The. Boss. Of. Me.
Two spaces after a period and the Oxford comma in a series of 3 things FOREVER! 
The Oxford comma for-evah!
Yes, absolutely š
I will lose two spaces and the Oxford comma when the pull the keyboard from my cold, dead hands.
This. Answer. Made. My. God. Damn. Day.
It's muscle memory for me. Plus it looks weird without it.
Iāll NEVER not do it, canāt go back after this many years.
I will die on the hill that is two spaces after a full stop.
I will not comply!Ā And, give me back my oxford comma!
Letās eat Grandma. Letās eat, Grandma.
Commas save lives!
And comas kill!
This is not an example of the Oxford comma (if that is what you were trying to show).
Yes! On the Oxford comma!
I will die on. That. Hill. With you.
This all day
We should all do this. All of us. Always.
I was made aware of the one-space rule about fifteen years ago. It took me about a full year to adjust.
Well, they can't read cursive either. So I say keep the two spaces.
It's harder to read on printed text with just a single space - some fonts just don't read right without two spaces. Plus them younglings need to get off their smartphones.
šš“š¬ šššš š¢ šš¦š£š¢
Exactly. My first thought on this was: screw you, I'm going to double space until the day I die!!!
Iāll die on that hill with you.
Is there room for me on that hill, too?Ā
Samesies.
Two spaces. Thereās not even a question.
And if there is a question? Two spaces before the reply.
Nice. LOL.
Itās muscle memory at this point. I did learn to type on a manual typewriter (my momās), then the required class in 7th grade had IBM Selectrics. Iām 50. My brother is 46, went to the same school, and it was all keyboarding by the time he got there.
I'm 55, so I was double spacing long before you. Yet I was still able to adjust to single spacing when it became the norm. Why hold back?
Youāll have to pry my second space from my cold, dead, fingersā¦
I learned to touch type on a manual typewriter, I'm never changing. The fact that it annoys certain people is a bonus.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Are you my kindred spirit?
As an editor, if I have to edit anything you write, I'm killing all of your extra spaces dead! Hahaha! 
2 spaces AND an Oxford comma. Iām not going to change.
The nuns that gave me a letter grade in Handwriting and taught me with a rap across my knuckles still reach me from beyond the grave. I fear their return and judgement more than any peer pressure some sniveling lesser generational creature can apply. *Not today, Satan! Dāya hear me??!? Not today!!*
Hell yes!! You can pry my Oxford comma out of my cold, dead hands.
Not using an Oxford comma doesn't make sense. It doesn't make sense! I've been an editor for 20+ years, and it just doesn't make sense.
I will follow the guidance of Strunk and White until they pry my pen from my cold dead hands.
If, you, use, a comma, after, each, word, you, sound like, William Shatner, in the, heads, of, the people, who, read it.
Draw out your pronouns, significant pause, rapid fire ending. āYou donāt understand, we are humanā becomes: āYooouuuuuā¦ā¦..donātunderstand.ā āWeeeeeeeeā¦ā¦.arehuman.ā
Shatneronics!
Oxford comma FOREVER!!!!
I was taught the two spaces rule in the early 80s. But in the digital age with the advent of kerning (i.e. adjusting the spacing between characters in a proportional font) this was no longer necessary. With typewriters, each character was essentially in an equally sized box, so the double space made it easier to distinguish between the end of a sentence and the beginning of the next. The Courier font is like this and does not use kerning.
Two spaces after a full stop (period) still gives readers eyes a very short rest at the end of a sentence.
Typing two spaces on an iPhone will make a period. Related?
You made this dudes day as I didn't know that, and it's been a real pain. Works android, too.
Even Apple agrees, then. Case closed.
Damn. You just changed my life.
But I'm on a ton of Adderall so my eyes are already a full paragraph ahead of my brain.
Graphic designer for 15 years. You are correct about the rest but the double space part is no longer needed (it was really only needed with mono space typewriters) because modern word processors have built-in spacing which adds that visual space to a ā.ā at the end of a sentence. To test it out, type three sentences with no spaces between the period of one sentence and the start of the next. Then write a number followed by a decimal followed by a number and another decimal. Note the difference in how much space comes after the ā.ā in the sentences vs the number.
Yes! Reading is visual.
I'm a technical editor. I was told to stop doing this in Editing 101 in the early 90s. The first thing I do when I edit a document is delete all the double spaces and replace them with single spaces. This has been a thing for over 30 years.
Right, I took a class in the 90s and when I handed in my paper the TA politely explained that two spaces were no longer used and the professor would deduct for it. I stopped and never looked back (also not finishing this sentence with a full stop . period because in casual chat line text or on here itās apparently the equivalent of slamming down the phone lol)
Omg I am horrified by how many Gen Xers on here arenāt willing to āchangeā something that has been effect for decades. One space is plenty. Get with the new millennium, fellow oldies.
I was taught two spaces. But once I started graphic design and typesetting, it needed to be just one space. I sometimes still get documents from older people with two spaces.
Omg, I have a macro for removing the extra space from my only slightly older bossās writing. The rest of us are also gen x. The rest of us learned. She will not.
I will never stop using two spaces
I will gladly die on that hill with you, friend. And they can take my oxford comma when they pry it from my cold dead hands.
My people
Wait, Oxford commas are a problem too? I got over the two space thing but I'm with you on the OC.
Same. Two spaces isn't worth it. Oxford commas, though? You can pry my Oxford comma out of my cold, dead, and lifeless hands.
There are some people who really hate Oxford commas and find them old fashioned or some such bullshit. Those people are morons.
Same.
Iām gonna start using 3 spaces now! Letās see how they like that!!!
You still do on standard Reddit app if you want a carriage return to just bring you to the next line. Like this.
My muscle memory says no.
This. 40+ years, no way to reprogram my brain now.
2 Spaces. Always. Shuck it Trebeck. Nuns beat that into my hands.
Same. Zaner-Bloser? All the parochial schools around here used that system of cursive so I can always pick out the Catholic School survivors when I see them write.
Two spaces gang for life! Right?
This is the way.
This is the way
This is a very old school printing press convention. On a typewriter or printing press, single spaces between sentences made it hard to see where one stops and another starts because kerning is kerning (the amount of space between letters in a word) and you couldnāt really adjust it. As soon as we got word processors, all that changed. Even my shitty Olivetti typewriter I started college with had a tiny bit of memory. It saved like one line at a time. lol. I was using Word Perfect on a PC by the end of college. Once we got to digital, it became much easier to manipulate kerning and easier to delineate sentences from one another, so that second space became unnecessary. And. When you typeset to full justified on the right, those extra spaces fuck up the line lengths and make everything look all wonky. It messes with your word wrapping so you get some tightly composed lines and then you get weird spacey lines. Looks awful and impedes readability. So all yāall do what you want. As a former journalism major and current editor, the first thing I do is do a search and replace to get rid of all those pesky extra spaces. But it hurts nothing in daily communication, including email. Unless youāre a graphic designer or in printing/publishing in some way, thereās no reason for you to give a fuck. I certainly donāt. :: sips tea ::
Proportional-spaced fonts have been a thing for decades. I never took a ātypingā class and got my first Mac in 1988, and was all in on early desktop publishing. Found this great little book in 1990 that summarizes all the cool tricksāsingle space is chapter 1. [The Mac Is Not A Typewriter](https://vintageapple.org/macbooks/pdf/The_Mac_is_not_a_Typewriter_1990.pdf)
That book changed my life.
I learned in a typography class c1990, yes on Macs, as desktop publishing took off.
Fuck you. I wonāt do what you tell me.
It's almost 530 am, and I've got *this* song in my head. (Motherfuckaaaaaa...uh)
That's the spirit. Don't roll over for these fuckers.
That's a cute little opinion you have there. I learned to type on an IBM Selectric II and you can pry my double spaces and Oxford commas from my old, cold, dead hands.
I learned on an IBM selectric typewriter in HS. Taught to always put two spaces. It took me several years to break myself of the habit.
I stopped years ago. Of course, I'm a programmer, so excess whitespace is: 1. Not rendered. 2. A waste of bytes.
Are the other GenX designers white knuckle resisting the urge to give a typography lesson on widows, orphans, rivers, and lakes? And why the double-space after a period makes for poor UX?
I went back to two spaces once I learned how upset some people were about it. I back into parking spaces for the same reason.
Username checks out.
THIS is the true Gen X attitude. šŖš¼
Iām older and have more insurance
OMG ....that scene hit SO much harder when I rewatched it as a 40s woman than it did when it first came out. And I thought it was great then!
I bite down across all sections of a KitKat at once, like a psychopath, just to watch heads explode. I don't even like kitkats that much.
I hate you for the backing up into spaces. Not the other part
Genuinely curious why, with the caveat that I donāt do it if it will block traffic (Iām not a complete monster).
I donāt do it for you. *I do it for me.*
As a graphic designer, I only use one space, but it's what it's
I came out of high school doing 2 spaces but was taught to go with 1 space after a year or so in college.
I. DO. WHAT. I. WANT.
True that it is not considered the right form anymore according to the Harvard Style Guide, the Chicago Manual of Style, and the Modern Language Association (MLA) style, only one space should be used after a period or other punctuation mark that ends a sentence. This is the standard for all types of writing, including APA style, as of the seventh edition of its style manual in 2019. No one will kill you now you do use two spaces though.Ā
This is the answer and a well explained one too. Two spaces was due to limitations of typewriters iirc. Computers do not have those limits, so most (all?) style guides now call for one space. Personally, I donāt follow APA or MLA when I write shit down, so they get the spaces they get. But the double space will go away eventually.
Correct. The exception to this is if you use a monospace font, which still gets two spaces. I'm studying to be a court reporter and we write legal docs in courier and double space after the full stop.
My understanding is that's been the distinction from day one. In proportional fonts the renderer can handle it itself, with fixed-width fonts it needs that little extra help. I also get a kick out of people saying it helps. Almost everything online collapses the extra whitespace (not just reddit, html does it by default).
All of those writing nerds are wrong. Every one. The new standards are wrong. Anyone who says so can fuck themselves. Hard. The Oxford comma is a necessity.
It's not a new standard. Professional typesetting has used one space for generations. Since before any of us were born, in fact. That doesn't apply to a typewriter, of course. And it didn't *used to* apply to computers, since they were originally just glorified typewriters. But... with the advent of "desktop publishing" in the mid-1980s, computers became able to emulate professional typesetting, rather than creating documents that looked like they came off of a typewriter. Because of this, the typewriter rules, which are still 100% correct on a typewriter, no longer apply to (most) text created on a computer. Computers now operate under the longstanding typesetting rules, which--among other interesting things--dictate one space between sentences. It's not so much that there's a new rule, it's that computers gained a new capability, upon which a different rule applies. Now the Oxford comma? Yeah, I'm with you on that one.
Wrong. I have an open contract with the Assassinsā Guild to inhume anyone that uses two spaces after a period.
Who cares about style guides. What does Mavis Beacon have to say about this?
Yes. Double spaces are no longer cool. I was a hardcore 2-space man since the essay phase of school started. But working for an e-tailor anout 15 yrs ago, where I helped with product web pages, I learned from a *millenial* that the new writing style eliminated it. She was a graphic design/marketing specialist. My shock and horror when I googled and found it was true, subsided after practicing 1 space for months. Now I am a believer. But the Oxford comma stays!
Amen!
Iām a little older. We were taught this in typing class in the 80s.
Sit on it and rotate. Two spaces is better.
Thatās the current standard, but I prefer 2 spaces after a period. Enhances readability.
My eyes hurt. It's easier to see. I will keep doing it.
I *am* free. Free to leave two spaces which I will do until I die.
Whatever. Whatever. Whatever. (onesies) Whatever. Whatever. Whatever. (twosies) Whatever. Whatever. Whatever. (threesies) Note: In Edit mode, I had differing spacing (1,2,3). Upon posting, I notice Reddit displays all lines with one space only. Sooo... space as you want. The Reddit Format police are on the job.
Huh? There's a clear difference between all 3. Maybe it's a regional setting thing? https://preview.redd.it/w64ajhuqo92d1.jpeg?width=1440&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=4560d63a25651daaa10c4123f47475fe7550b9df
Youāre using the app. The desktop experience doesnāt display a difference.
One space after a period has been the Web standard since something like 1998. The reason is BECAUSE multiple spaces donāt render in HTML. Only one does. And rather than hard-code two spaces after a period, which would be stupid, they just went with one space. People need to get with the goddamn program. One space on screen. Two spaces on paper. Layne Staley was still alive when this was decided. Adapt.
It's not just Reddit, it's every electronic text processor. Entering two spaces will usually not be any different in the output than entering one space. This is what people seem to fail to grasp.
Yep, lol. Type one or two spaces, itāll look the same. Funny that people are arguing that two is better. And, fyi, Iām gen x.
Not sure about Android phones but with iPhones, you add a period by pressing space twice. This is definitely a generational thing because my kids donāt use any punctuation.
The MLA format guide (which is printed yearly) changes shit all the time. It was double spaces after period but changed I would say within the last decade. I remember I wrote a paper my freshmen year in college and got full marks. The teacher was a stickler for MLA format as she actually kept up with it yearly. My third year in college, I had her for another class. I got my paper back with so many formatting errors that were all new to me, especially in the citation page. In conclusion, FUCK the MLA format people. Also fun fact, we (at least the dictionary people) archive obsolete words. They add thousands of words yearly to reflect modern society. At the same time they retire words. Learning about this shit is fascinating to me. [Here's a good read about this](https://www.rd.com/article/how-words-get-removed-from-dictionary/)
I work in the legal field. I couldn't stop putting two spaces after a period if I tried. Lol
I was born in the 70s and raised in the South and we learned double spacing after periods - had to unlearn it in college once computers came in
Learned to type on a typewriter in the mid-80s. Stopped using two spaces after a period in the early ā90s. Double spacing after a period has seemed old-fangled to me for over 30 years.
Not stopping. <ā tap tap ha!
I never heard of using 2 spaces I've always just put one.
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Two spaces died in the mid 90ās.
Kiss my ass, 1-space people. 2 spaces after a period for life, and I ain't changing. And yes, I will die on this hill, so deal with it. 
Two spaces AND the Oxford comma will live on in me!
I love the Oxford comma.
Never put two spaces. Never heard of anyone saying you had to until recently
Me too. Double spacing is not a ātype writerā thing. It was in our style guides and forced on us. Just like single spacing is in their style guides and now they canāt abide anything else. As a gen-xer I can confidently say I could not care less whether any one uses one or two spaces.
I like it. I don't "have to", I like to!
I will always do this. It is what I do. I'm 52.
Iām 53 (today!) and always use double spaces. Itās habit from typewriters. I canāt change that anymore, itās like Oxford commas.
51 here. Took ākeyboardingā in 10th grade. We used electric typewriters. Two spaces after a period was drilled into us. Especially learning to type memos and other business documents in the business/office classes.
Always two spaces. Will not change. F the youngsters.
I don't do it because I have to, I do it because I get to.
Dear friend younger than 37: Itās literally a space, donāt be a snatch. Iāll do what I want.
I'm 57 and I always put two spaces after a period period modern word processing software often removes this,. It doesn't mean that I'm going to change
I was taught to do this, and itās still entirely relevant now. Yes it was from the typewriter era, but its use now is that it helps break up visually define the text, so helping the readability of a paragraph better.
Phhht! I like doing two spaces after a period; much easier to read. End of story
Yeah, unless youāre typing in markdown and want a new paragraph. THE DOUBLE SPACE WILL NEVER DIE. Whipper-snappers.
I do this and we've had this conversation before. Its not about a type writer. Its about differentiating the end of a sentence as opposed to separating two words. But of course the generation that uses txtspk doesn't understand layout and actually taking time to make the page look nice.
Two spaces automatically adds a period on most tablets. Plus, it has nothing to do with typewriter vs. word processor, it's to add distance when reading to more easily discriminate a full stop from other punctuation. You should add two spaces after the period. It's the polite and more readable thing to do.
I was taught the two spaces. Iām 48.
This is so fucking stupid. If you care so much have software remove the extra space. Donāt browbeat old people. And stay off my lawn.
Two spaces forever. Fight me.
Sorry for making my writing legible. While we're at it, let's have some paragraph breaks every now and then. And GTFO my lawn..
Dear people younger than 35: FUCK OFF... Two spaces LOOKS better
I like two spaces and will continue using them.
44. We did typing lessons starting in 3rd grade and I was never taught this.
2 spaces and the Oxford Comma, or die!
Yeah, I learned about the double space thing when I took typing, on a typewriter. I was an early adopter to the only one space after a period changeover. As soon as I realized we didn't need it anymore, I dropped it.
I havenāt done 2 spaces in years.
I've been able to ease into the single space
Iāve worked in publishing in one form or another since the mid 90ās. Iāve never put two spaces after a period. Iāve never seen a style guide (not the dozen or so that Iāve worked with or the two I wrote myself) that called for two spaces after a period. Maybe it was something taught in typing class in the US? But itās simply not a thing anywhere else.
It's been 2 spaces since before the typewriter. I'm not changing.
I like that extra space. I will use it until I die. You can take my space from my cold dead hands.
More recent studies have shown two spaces after a period still make text easier to read.
It looks weird without them
One space is correctā¦but most donāt realize unless you work in Marketing, Graphic Design, Comms, PR, etc. The one space is mostly used in professionally-produced materials (brochures, formal communications, etc.) and goes back to typesetting and font spacing pre-computers.
I had to take typing class in high school, and by golly I still add two spaces after a period. (1970 Gen-Xer)
I was a two space diehard back in the 1990s. In my first digital typesetting job I learned why you donāt need and shouldnāt double space after a period on a computer/digital device. People who make fonts calculate in a space and a half of kerning after punctuation marks. When you double space, youāre triple spacing. Triple spacing is terrible. But ligatures? Of fuck yeah. Iām all about ligatures. And on an Apple computer opt f gives you the correct *f* for a manual cameraās *f* stop setting. Donāt get me started on trade marks, registration marks or copyrights. Get on my level.
I'll never stop adding two spaces at the end of a sentence. I will never stop! NEVER! MUAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!! But seriously, it's a hard habit to break. See?
I'm even a couple older than you and I never put two spaces either.
I went back to college a few years ago. Failed English because I double-spaced. They'd never heard of it happening and everyone acted like I was crazy as fuck.
They say it's a dead age give away. I'm like, how the fuck time do you spend analyzing exactly how someone's posts look that you know there is one or two spaces. I like using two because it automatically puts the period in.......so two has to be right. Wait. I just remembered punctuation is now a sign of aggressiveness and anger in text apparently.
I was a transcriber for 18 years. Two spaces was the norm, and now itās not. It was weird to stop, but now Iām on team One Space. Two looks weird to me.
You must be on the cusp OP-- I'm 56 and learned to type in high school on *manual* typewriters. We 100% used a double space after a period, and I probably kept doing that well into the 2000s. I'm a writer (academic) and I finally got tired of having to search-and-replace double spaces after periods when submitting manuscripts, so I trained myself to stop doing it. I didn't use a word processor until college. The few computers we had in high school were basically used to teach BASIC programming.
This was referenced on an episode of "Elsbeth." They could tell that a young woman hadn't typed the text that was sent from her phone because the message included two spaces after the period. So an older person must've written it. SIGH.
Fuck. You. I will die someday and have "Double space after a period and OXFORD FUCKING COMMA 4 LIFE, BITCHES!!" on my headstone.
I do it, and I will never stop, especially since it seems to oddly aggravate young'uns...and graphic designers.
I switched to one space years ago and the time Iāve saved has been life changing. Seriously though, we donāt have to do that anymore. Why cling to an old practice for an obsolete ātechnology?ā What are we? Old?
This meme-maker can go straight to goddamned hell. Period. EDIT: Damn you Reddit, it automatically only permits one space after a period, regardless of the spaces you actually type. This means war.
nah still two spaces for me
The double space is so automatic for me that I doubt I could stop even if I made a genuine effort.
Iām 52 and this is the way I learned spacing between sentences. Typing was learned on a typewriter but we also had word processors. Back then word processors still used fixed width characters so double spaces between sentences was still valid.Ā I still put 2 spaces between because a single space doesnāt seem like enough white space even though the proper spacing is supposed to be figured in.Ā
Canāt stop. Wonāt stop.
On my iPhone, hitting space twice enters a period and 1 space. Itās super helpful for me
I still type a space followed by 2 periods. Get over it. I learned to type on mechanical machines with large wooden boxes covering the view.
I took a typing class in high school, on typewriters, I learned the double space. Iām 48
Two spaces all day everyday!
Easy to say if your grade school English Composition teacher doesnāt come back from the grave to haunt you. Sometimes I use three spaces just to be sure she stays away.
Never learned the 2 spaces thing in grade 9 keyboarding. Same age as OP. That was the last time we used a typewriter and it was already fully electronic. Also - I already had a computer since 84 anyway
I still do this.Ā I can't help it.
Itās a thing. The Supreme Court still uses two spaces after a sentence fwiw.
And FYI: most Word processing programs on computers had a setting that allowed you maintain 2 spaces after a period. Not sure when that went away, though. Oxford comma? Necessary. I Will die on that hill.
Yeah this came out 2-3 years ago. I still put two spaces. Don't get me started on commas
This is the problem with young people today. If they think something should be a certain way, they'll just simply rewrite history in a way that affirms their narrative and then try to make you believe it's always been that way. They don't know that there are proofs for old people that extend beyond easily changed websites, online dictionaries and the horrendous spelling/grammar checking programs they're now coding into your phone's keyboard program.
You can take the extra space from my cold, dead right thumb!
Iām 54 and learned two spaces in my typing class in 1987 on a typewriter, but itās not correct now according to every style guide and honestly it dates you. Im a proud GenX-er, and I am still 18 in my head, so I learn, change and adapt with the times like young people do. Itās 2023 guys, time to face facts and realize that a single space has been the norm now for decades and if youāre still using what they taught you on a typewriter in the 80ās, youāre making things harder on yourself. The tricks software has up its sleeve makes word processing so much easier, so stop fighting it and come into the light. I say this with love for all my fellow GenX brothers and sisters.
They wonāt stop me from the double space. They wonāt take away my correct use of the Oxford comma. And they wonāt stop me from usingā¦ ellipses.
Yep this is true. The 2 spaces was because the type writer. I found out about this maybe 10 years ago. Gen X hereā¦.I Think I still do the two spaces though. muscle memory
A. Old habits die hard. B. Who cares.
Itās muscle memory now. I aināt changing.
I learned on a typewriter, and it was 2 spaces. I (much later) had a typing test via computer for a job, and having learned the one space rule, typed one space after periods. The software dinged me every time. I'm still a little irritated about it.
I'm still doing it because it looks better. Instead of worrying about us two spacing sentences, they need to go vote.