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My wife says this is standard practice and the correct way to do things, yet I've failed to find any evidence of this in any correspondence from any company currently in my home.
A little research on the internet reveals that she's right, but it's now seen as old fashioned and that it's rarely seen any more with modern fonts and word processors. Double spacing can also be seen as 'gappy' and distracting from the message you're trying to convey. Your thoughts?
I do it.
I'm a double space person
Modern fonts are supposed to remove the need apparently. I don't like how it looks personally so I don't do it but no clue what's right or wrong.
That's how I was taught at school. I think it looks better. See.
Edit: What do you know, the forum removes the double space!
Along with the full stop and capital letter, the double space shows a distinction between a new word and a new sentence.
I hate it, it looks silly with modern fonts.
I was never taught it at school. Only in professional documentation. I normally use it now.
Made sense with a typewriter. Doesn't make sense anymore.
PS Your wife is right (by definition).
fyi, if using indesign, it's easy enough to create a script to get rid of them.
Double tap!
I've used it since my post-grad dissertation thesis thingy.
Any modern fashions are irrelevant. There is only one correct way. And just why does this look wrong?
Go for it! So long as you want to look like you learned to type in the 1960s. It's one of those religious things, but in this case it's wrong. Very wrong 🙂
It's a hangover from the typewriter age. Typewriters by design used monospaced fonts. No longer necessary in the digital age, and now considered bad practise.
As others have said, no longer considered correct. However, I can't get out of the habit and still automatically double tap the space bar after a full stop when typing even though I know I shouldn't.
My mum says it's a double space and she is always right. A sentence reads much better with a double space. Also it is quite nice getting to press the space bar twice, even though it will of course contribute to keyboard wear and tear.
Old style typewriting = Yes, double spacing after a full stop. A must.
Microsoft Word = Full justification for the paragraph. Yes and no depending on the length of the sentence. (programme adjusts accordingly).
Microsoft Word = Left justification for the paragraph. Yes.
Microsoft Word = Right justification for the paragraph. Yes.
, and now considered bad practise.
Unlike poor grammar 😉
Bad practice my arse. It helps with the overall paragraph structure and makes documentation easier to read. I demand it of all the documents that I check. and I have been known to make people redo the document they have written so that is correct. I also demand the correct use of the degree symbol and a non breaking space between numbers and their units.
and I have been known to make people redo the document they have written so that is correct.
I've worked with people who have done exactly that, and they were, without exception, absolute worthless strokers.
PS, gonefishin, you need to proofread your post, you don't meet your own high standards 🙂
Double. Spacing. Is. So. Outdated. Modern. Devices. Have. An. Alternative. Use. For. Double. Space.
It's standard in defence writing too
Double spacer but don't care what other people do.
That makes me be both traditional and liberal, so I proclaim myself winner of the thread.
I'm not at work today ;). Besides it's not enough that work be correct, it has to look correct and I've always found that people who don't appreciate that fact are, to use your vernacular, strokers.
I win.
You guys are losers for not taking into consideration the software on the pooter. You need to provide more details for when to use or not to use it.
Drac fails big time so you need to redo the entire document again.
😆
Made sense with fixed monospace fonts (like on a typewriter) where a . is as wide as a W
Makes no sense at all on a modern proportional fonts where each character has a different width.
Fixed/typewriter:
..........
WWWWWWWWWW
Proportional/modern:
..........
WWWWWWWWWW
See?
I've worked in design and print for pretty much all of my life, since my very early twenties, and I've never been told about double spacing. A single tap on the space-bar when typing this gives a perfectly good space after a full-point. Doing a double space, like I've just done at the beginning of this sentence, look too much, quite frankly.
I'll try to remember this when I go back to work on Tuesday, and ask someone I've worked with for all that time, as he is pretty sharp on typography and getting it right.
Bad practice my arse. It helps with the overall paragraph structure and makes documentation easier to read. I demand it of all the documents that I check. and I have been known to make people redo the document they have written so that is correct.
Glad I don't work with you. Ridiculous behaviour!
GrahamS - MemberSee?
No see! 😈
Try typing few sentences with Full justification or Right justification to see how the paragraphs look like.
It all depends on whether the software will deal with the space adjustment. 🙄
I double space but I also put a space between a word and a question or exclamation mark which is "wrong", I'm told.
Drac fails big time so you need to redo the entire document again.
What document?
scaredypants - MemberI double space but I also put a space between a word and a question or exclamation mark which is "wrong", I'm told.
No spacing between exclamation mark, question mark etc.
Drac - ModeratorDrac fails big time so you need to redo the entire document again.
What document?
Whatever documents you are working on ... 😆
It's never been a design thing. It's always been an admin thing, used to teach it in admin classes at my school./CountZero - Member
I've worked in design and print for pretty much all of my life, since my very early twenties, and I've never been told about double spacing. A single tap on the space-bar when typing this gives a perfectly good space after a full-point. Doing a double space, like I've just done at the beginning of this sentence, look too much, quite frankly.
I'll try to remember this when I go back to work on Tuesday, and ask someone I've worked with for all that time, as he is pretty sharp on typography and getting it right.
Glad I don't work with you. Ridiculous behaviour!
Do bear in mind that all it takes to re do a document is a global search and replace so it's not much of a hardship.
I'm 55 and was taught single space at school.
gonefishin - MemberGlad I don't work with you. Ridiculous behaviour!
Do bear in mind that all it takes to re do a document is a global search and replace so it's not much of a hardship.
Find and Replace. Simple!
scotroutes - MemberI'm 55 and was taught single space at school.
But did you take typing class? If you did then you would find that the textbooks say double spacing after full stop.
For what it is worth, wiki cites several respected typography and style guides, including the "Chicago Manual of Style" and the "Oxford Style Manual" (aka Hart's Rules) and they agree on single space:
With the advent of the computer age, typographers began deprecating double spacing, even in monospaced text. In 1989, Desktop Publishing by Design stated that "typesetting requires only one space after periods, question marks, exclamation points, and colons", and identified single sentence spacing as a typographic convention.[34] Stop Stealing Sheep & Find Out How Type Works (1993) and Designing with Type: The Essential Guide to Typography (2006) both indicate that uniform spacing should be used between words, including between sentences.[35]More recent works on typography weigh in strongly. Ilene Strizver, founder of the Type Studio, says, "Forget about tolerating differences of opinion: typographically speaking, typing two spaces before the start of a new sentence is absolutely, unequivocally wrong."[13] The Complete Manual on Typography (2003) states that "The typewriter tradition of separating sentences with two word spaces after a period has no place in typesetting" and the single space is "standard typographic practice".[36] The Elements of Typographic Style (2004) advocates a single space between sentences, noting that "your typing as well as your typesetting will benefit from unlearning this quaint [double spacing] Victorian habit."[6]
David Jury's book, About Face: Reviving the Rules of Typography (2004)—published in Switzerland—clarifies the contemporary typographic position on sentence spacing:
Word spaces, preceding or following punctuation, should be optically adjusted to appear to be of the same value as a standard word space. If a standard word space is inserted after a full point or a comma, then, optically, this produces a space of up to 50% wider than that of other word spaces within a line of type. This is because these punctuation marks carry space above them, which, when added to the adjacent standard word spaces, combines to create a visually larger space. Some argue that the "additional" space after a comma and full point serves as a "pause signal" for the reader. But this is unnecessary (and visually disruptive) since the pause signal is provided by the punctuation mark itself.[37]
...
..style guides began changing their guidance on sentence spacing. The 1969 edition of the Chicago Manual of Style used em spaces between sentences in its text;[41] by the 2003 edition it had changed to single sentence spacing for both manuscript and print. By the 1980s, the United Kingdom's Hart's Rules (1983)[42] had shifted to single sentence spacing. Other style guides followed suit in the 1990s.[43] Soon after the beginning of the 21st century, the majority of style guides had changed to indicate that only one word space was proper between sentences.
That's good enough for me. 😀
[i]I've worked in design and print for pretty much all of my life, since my very early twenties, and I've never been told about double spacing.[/i]
Are you still in your early twenties?
A double space after a full-stop is no different to proper spelling and punctuation. All part of writing English correctly; to make sure it is clear, accurate and understood.
Are you still in your early twenties?A double space after a full-stop is no different to proper spelling and punctuation. All part of writing English correctly; to make sure it is clear, accurate and understood.
Nonsense. It's an outdated style thing.
We should be more concerned with the incorrect usage of hyphens, en-dashes and em-dashes.
That's how I was taught at school
I was taught to use a pen and inkwell at school. I don't recall double spacing being mentioned.
A double space after a full-stop is no different to proper spelling and punctuation. All part of writing English correctly; to make sure it is clear, accurate and understood.
Despite the fact that the standard style guides, which are concerned far more than most about proper punctuation, typography and written English, all say that a single space is now correct? 😀
Styles change. Just because you were taught something in typing class 50 odd years ago doesn't mean that is the standard now.
We should be more concerned with the incorrect usage of hyphens, en-dashes and em-dashes.
And don't get me started on people that use ... instead of … 🙂
...why?
My options selections (allegedly) meant I 'had' to take typing at school (proper typewriters). That must be where the 'correct' use of double space came from for me. And actually being one of only two guys in a class of 14 year old girls turned out a lot better than I expected. Still can't touch type though.
I've worked with people who have done exactly that, and they were, without exception, absolute worthless strokers.
+1. It's an obsolete rule that serves no purpose other than to enable the person observing it (or even worse requiring its observance) to demonstrate their knowledge of it. It's a shibboleth...for strokers.
It's very, very wrong, unless you are using a typewriter. I find it makes me irrationally annoyed. Almost as much as people using direct formatting instead of learning to use styles.
Almost as much as people using direct formatting instead of learning to use styles.
I've always found accessing and modifying styles in MS Word so counterintutive that I can understand why people don't use them.
Alt+0133 … [b]GrahamS[/b], thanks, didn't know about that
I did a touch typing course in 1997 and we were taught to double space, so I've been doing it ever since. In a previous job the house style forbade the use of double spaces, but it was still easier to write my copy and then go back and remove the extra spaces than to break the habit. With touch typing you go into 'the zone', where you don't think about what your fingers are doing at all. If you do, your speed drops and typos happen. I reckon that's why people still double space, it's just too hard to stop doing it.
You can include as many spaces as you like on the web and the browser will strip them out anyway.
^there are almost 100 spaces in that sentence^
Doesn't work for me?
😉
Single space after a full stop is an Americanism.
Two spaces makes the text easier to read.
[quote=technicallyinept ]
Are you still in your early twenties?
A double space after a full-stop is no different to proper spelling and punctuation. All part of writing English correctly; to make sure it is clear, accurate and understood.
Nonsense. It's an outdated style thing.
We should be more concerned with the incorrect usage of hyphens, en-dashes and em-dashes.
Not to mention writing a sentence without a subject.
When I text with my phone, keying a double space always inserts a full stop.
No it's wrong (unless you are still using a typewriter). I find it is normally done sloppily anyway, so remove them from any document I review.
Single space after a full stop is an Americanism.
Why is it called [i]French Spacing[/i] then? 😀
And why is it recommended practise in the very British [i]"Oxford Style Manual"[/i], the European Union's [i]"Interinstitutional Style Guide"[/i] and the European Commission's [i]"English Style Guide"[/i]?
Two spaces makes the text easier to read.
Despite the studies that say it doesn't?
no statistically significant results were found. The Ni et al. (2004) study was interested in testing the differences among groups of students randomly assigned to the same reading materials, but with different spacing after a sentence period. Ni et al. also resulted in a lack of statistical significance.-- http://www.aect.org/events/review/PropResults.asp?submit=View+Full+Proposal.&propid=148
Damnit GrahamS broke my browser !
As someone who's properly educated in typography, and who spends a considerable amount of my life typesetting (and I'm ridiculously OCD about having it 'just right'), if you supplied me with copy and it had double spaces in it, you'd be lucky to escape with your life!
It normally goes hand in hand with asking to justify the type in the ranks of annoying typographic idiocy. If you asked for both, I'd make sure they'd never even find your body!
GrahamS had the correct answer back on the first page.
Double spacing is a throwback to monospaced fonts where a letter m and a letter i are the same width. With modern proportional fonts it's unnecessary and considered bad form.
As someone else noted, STW will strip out double-spaces; that's actually a Web thing rather than specific to here, web browsers will strip multiple spaces when rendering HTML (unless you explicitly tell it not to in the page's markup).
I can't help but double-space, but then I spent over a decade using computers with monospaced fonts (from the ZX Spectrum to green-screen PR1ME minicomputers) and twice as long on [url= http://www.mono.org ]Mono[/url] so it's a hard habit to break.
When I text with my phone, keying a double space always inserts a full stop.
That's just a convenient shortcut, you won't actually get two spaces (unless you press it a third time).