One or two spaces after a full stop

ZiggyStar

I was always taught two spaces at school and still type two spaces. But now I'm wondering if I should change to one space. Most books and websites only seem to ever use one space after a full stop.

What are the correct rules? What's being taught in schools now?

illegal pants

2... !

Hitch-Hiker

All word processors in the world dictate 1 space. Any more and you get that annoying squiggly spellcheck underliney thingy.

surfanddestroy

2

Well that is what I have always been told.

Heineken Helen

2 and one after a comma... that's what I've always done. I'm currently working for the most particular boss in the world and if he hasn't changed it to 1, well it's 2

Julien

i've always used only 1.

Collin

I was taught 2 and then I was taught 1.

We were always taught to use half an m-space kinda thingy after an exclamation mark or whatever by pressing space + apple button + shift + 6 + the reset button... I don't know... I never really paid much attention

I think the general rule is that no one really cares.

dunkman

Spacing after full stop
In typewritten texts and other documents printed in fixed-width fonts, there is a convention among lay American English writers that two spaces are placed after the full stop (along with the other sentence enders: question mark and exclamation mark), as opposed to the single space used after other punctuation symbols. This is sometimes termed "French spacing".

In modern English-language typographical usage, debate has arisen concerning the proper number of trailing spaces after a full stop (or exclamation mark, or question mark) to separate sentences within a paragraph. Whereas two spaces are still regarded by many outside the publishing industry to be the better usage for monospace typefaces, the awkwardness that most word-processing applications have in representing correctly the 1.5 spaces that had previously become standard for typographically proportional (non-monospace) fonts has led to some confusion about how to render the space between sentences using only word-processing tools.

Many descriptivists (i.e., people who describe how language is used in practice) support the notion that a single space after a full stop should be considered standard because it has been the norm in mainstream publishing for many decades. This is supported by the MLA, APA[6], and The Chicago Manual of Style.[7] Many prescriptivists (i.e., people who make recommendations for rules of language use), meanwhile, adhere to the earlier use of two spaces on typewriters to make the separation of sentences more salient than separation of elements within sentences. Since current style guides are founded on the consensus of practice, the evidence strongly suggests that most people accept the single space in modern word-processing, largely for the reason that two spaces may stretch inordinately when full justification is applied. Additionally, many computer typefaces are designed proportionately to alleviate the need for the double space (the opposition would of course reply that this does nothing to satisfy the aforementioned saliency issue). Most widely accepted contemporary style guides categorically require that only one space be placed after full stops and similar punctuation marks, and they characterise modern practice as avoiding it.[8]

With the advent of the World Wide Web, the broader distinction between full stop spacing and internal spacing in a sentence has become largely moot. Standardized HTML treats additional whitespace after the first space as immaterial (siding unquestioningly with the one-spacers), and ignores it when rendering the page. A common workaround for this is the use of   character entity (non-breaking space) to represent extra spaces, and this is done automatically by some WYSIWYG editors.

An argument for having two spaces after a full stop arises from accessibility, or universal design. It is often reported that people with dyslexia prefer double spacing after a full stop.[9] See justification (typesetting) for further discussion.

PearlJamaholic

most computer typing programs do it automaticly. the old 2 space thing comes from typewriters, which are stupid machines, so some letters are wider than others so your supposed to use 2 spaces. computers know what they are doing and autocorrect for space differences. i could be wrong with this but i think spaces on typewriters use the center of letters, which is what throws everything off.

edit:i was too slow and less detail

ozsmalltowngirl

ZiggyStar wrote:

I was always taught two spaces at school and still type two spaces. But now I'm wondering if I should change to one space. Most books and websites only seem to ever use one space after a full stop.

What are the correct rules? What's being taught in schools now?

OMG! I have NEVER heard of this :eek: It's a long time since I was at school, so either they didn't teach that then, or I just didn't listen

But, anyway......too set in my ways to change now

Interesting though, Zig

Super Vedder

dunkman wrote:

Spacing after full stop
In typewritten texts and other documents printed in fixed-width fonts, there is a convention among lay American English writers that two spaces are placed after the full stop (along with the other sentence enders: question mark and exclamation mark), as opposed to the single space used after other punctuation symbols. This is sometimes termed "French spacing".

In modern English-language typographical usage, debate has arisen concerning the proper number of trailing spaces after a full stop (or exclamation mark, or question mark) to separate sentences within a paragraph. Whereas two spaces are still regarded by many outside the publishing industry to be the better usage for monospace typefaces, the awkwardness that most word-processing applications have in representing correctly the 1.5 spaces that had previously become standard for typographically proportional (non-monospace) fonts has led to some confusion about how to render the space between sentences using only word-processing tools.

Many descriptivists (i.e., people who describe how language is used in practice) support the notion that a single space after a full stop should be considered standard because it has been the norm in mainstream publishing for many decades. This is supported by the MLA, APA[6], and The Chicago Manual of Style.[7] Many prescriptivists (i.e., people who make recommendations for rules of language use), meanwhile, adhere to the earlier use of two spaces on typewriters to make the separation of sentences more salient than separation of elements within sentences. Since current style guides are founded on the consensus of practice, the evidence strongly suggests that most people accept the single space in modern word-processing, largely for the reason that two spaces may stretch inordinately when full justification is applied. Additionally, many computer typefaces are designed proportionately to alleviate the need for the double space (the opposition would of course reply that this does nothing to satisfy the aforementioned saliency issue). Most widely accepted contemporary style guides categorically require that only one space be placed after full stops and similar punctuation marks, and they characterise modern practice as avoiding it.[8]

With the advent of the World Wide Web, the broader distinction between full stop spacing and internal spacing in a sentence has become largely moot. Standardized HTML treats additional whitespace after the first space as immaterial (siding unquestioningly with the one-spacers), and ignores it when rendering the page. A common workaround for this is the use of   character entity (non-breaking space) to represent extra spaces, and this is done automatically by some WYSIWYG editors.

An argument for having two spaces after a full stop arises from accessibility, or universal design. It is often reported that people with dyslexia prefer double spacing after a full stop.[9] See justification (typesetting) for further discussion.

God, i think that's the most boring thing i ever read!!!!


err did i use the correct spacing after my comma?

Heineken Helen

Super Vedder wrote:

God, i think that's the most boring thing i ever read!!!!


err did i use the correct spacing after my comma?

:eek: You READ it? I think I managed two words.

Summarise please dunk

Chazz

dunkman wrote:

Spacing after full stop
In typewritten texts and other documents printed in fixed-width fonts, there is a convention among lay American English writers that two spaces are placed after the full stop (along with the other sentence enders: question mark and exclamation mark), as opposed to the single space used after other punctuation symbols.

Thats what I was taught when I did my RSA Word Processing

ZiggyStar

Since word processors automatically change the two spaces to one, surely ONE space is now the norm and TWO spaces is outdated?

Do kids still have typing as a subject at school?

illegal pants

ZiggyStar wrote:

Since word processors automatically change the two spaces to one, surely ONE space is now the norm and TWO spaces is outdated?

Do kids still have typing as a subject at school?

interesting.. surely they must?

i always used 1 space 'til i had to do my thesis... thesis/journals/etc... require 2, and guidelines state this

audiodave

Heineken Helen wrote:

2 and one after a comma... that's what I've always done.

That's what I do, though most things I type are on the internet so it doesn't really matter anyway! The only reason I do two after the end of a sentence is because I don't like how it looks if there's only one.

Rygar

ZiggyStar wrote:

Since word processors automatically change the two spaces to one, surely ONE space is now the norm and TWO spaces is outdated?

Do kids still have typing as a subject at school?

None of the WP I use change the two spaces to one, nor do they indicate a grammatical error. I'm still using two.

Heineken Helen

audiodave wrote:

That's what I do, though most things I type are on the internet so it doesn't really matter anyway! The only reason I do two after the end of a sentence is because I don't like how it looks if there's only one.

same here it really looks wrong when somebody uses 1 space... or if something's justified and the spaces are all over the place

redrock

Two after a full stop and one after a comma. Still relevant as my daughter, who is 13, was also taught this at school.

a5pj

I was taught 2 after a period and one for everything else...

chime

Rygar wrote:

None of the WP I use change the two spaces to one, nor do they indicate a grammatical error. I'm still using two.

Same here and I've always done two after a full stop one after a comma. Never had anyone comment or say it was wrong either.