I was taught from an early age that it was always a double space after a period. Apparently that was only for type writers, but I refuse to change. Science has proven that double spacing is actually beneficial to the reader.
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Single space all the way!!! Funnily enough my wife and I butt heads about this kind of often.
My older brother was taught to double space but I wasn't. Only a 3 year difference between us so I am not sure why we were taught differently. But officially, they teach only to single space now. I personally find it pointless to hit the space bar twice.
Two spaces for me, however my son (middle school) is being taught single space to "save paper."
He should also drop the last e in empoyee, too. I think some Fortune 10 company did this back when typewriters were still a thing to save ink.
what about dropping the L instead?
Typing is hard - LOL.
Is this one of those, "Take this quiz and we can guess your age" kinda things?
Double space 4 life!
We have finally reached it, the absolute period of deadness of the sports world...
Wait till you get a load of what I'm about to post (once my window opens)...
Double. Couldn't change if I wanted at this point.
With ine thing less to drive home in the English curriculum, perhaps there will be enough time to discuss the difference in they're, there, and their.
But they're (there, their) just to, too, two hard to remember
Those are easy for me.
They're is whenever you could substitute "they are" and the sentence would still make sense
Their is relating an object or a person to another person or group of people in a possessive sense
There is a a place
Two is a number
Too-use if you could substitute "as well" or in a situation where you're expressing a sense of something being excessive
To-is used pretty much any other time
It's affect/effect that trip me up. No matter how many times it's explained to me I still have trouble understanding how the words are anything but synonymous, homophone, alternate spellings of the same word like gray/grey. Especially since this is a thing:
Effect an Effect
Eh, I wouldn't ever say I had "as well much" work to do (or as well much to eat, or drink, etc). But otherwise, for the most part your descriptions are spot-on.
Also, the vast majority of the time, "affect" is a verb, and "effect" is a noun. "When Thing A affected Thing B, it caused multiple effects to happen."
There are alternative, infrequently-used definitions that can cause additional confusion. Effect can be a verb, essentially meaning "to directly cause or bring about" (as opposed to the verb "affect", which means "to influence or produce a change, or to create an emotional response). Affect can be a noun, specifically a technical term in the field of psychology or psychiatry for an emotional response brought about by a certain stimulus.
general rule of thumb is that affect is an action
Corrected, leg for you
Single!!
Two spaces?!? Ain't nobody got time for that!
Single space. Double space = barbarian.
Barbarian here... two spaces is the only way
When I read the title I thought "Are you a serial killer or a normal person?" Hate seeing double spaced after periods.
True, but only for variable-spaced fonts (which most are these days). If you use courier (one of the few mono-spaced fonts left), though, the above is wrong.
Double space. Took a typing class in middle school (15 years ago) where they hammered home the double space. It's just habit now.
Strong advocate of using both double spaces and Oxford commas.
Now, the Oxford comma, I'm all over that. It is right, decent, and just to use the Oxford comma.
I strongly support your advocacy of the Oxford comma.
While the first party has type of stripper i would prefer to see, the second party would be a much better story.
Technically, a comma is not to be used when the name follows an identifier when the names are introduced for the first time. Thus, in the second sentence, the comma is unnecessary:
"We invited the strippers JFK and Stalin."
If it was the other way around (i.e., identifier after the name), you would need the comma:
"We invited JFK and Stalin, the strippers."
You would also need the comma if it was previously established that the strippers are JFK and Stalin:
"We met strippers JFK and Stalin at a bar in Vegas. .... We invited the strippers, JFK and Stalin."
But, do whatever makes you happy!
what does bobby-sue have to do with this?
I don't know, but let me tell you, my love for her is true, and I want to muh-muh-muh-muh-marry her.
And here's why the study came to the conclusion that it did:
Of course the results came out that way. You're supposed to use two spaces after a period when using a mono-spaced font. With variable-spaced fonts, it's unnecessary.
yes, this is the scientifically correct stance. The only conclusion from this article is that double spacing is better when using mono-spaced font, which was established back when the type-writer was invented.
Moving on.
Think about this MS Word auto corrects a single space to a double space. So technically a double space is correct; however, doing a double in Word is redundant...
I try to find this gross, but it is so utterly fake i end up laughing instead.
Double space all the way. As others have said above there's no way I could change now if I tried. It's the way it should be. Just like mayonnaise's superiority over Miracle Whip.
Except you didn't do it after your first period in this comment!
I double space 100% of the time when I'm using a computer and 0% of the time when I'm using my phone.
you better commit to this or I'm calling the mods
FTFY. I think he was trolling.
Actually I'm not. I double space all the time. This board is set up to only show one space regardless of the number of spaces you put after the period. Try it for yourself in a comment. To test my theory I will put 6 spaces after this sentence before posting. Done and viola. One space. Joe is biased.
Joe doesn't like time-wasters. Like people who spend time hitting the space bar twice.
I thought we could be friends....
When you can't win in the forum, you have to go to your favorite desert...
I chose pie.
What're you cackling at, fatty? Too much pie, that's your problem!
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Excuse me. I've got a post to edit below.
My nerd wife says that browsers will only render one space and ignore all the rest. She was taught two-spaces like me, but she works in web development, and web content is one space only. Extra spaces have to be hard coded like any other special character.
Actually many places on the internet eliminate most types of "extra" whitespace in submitted forms. Helps with bandwidth, even if only a tiny bit. Facebook and pretty much any forum I use on a regular basis do, in fact. Speaking as a serial double-spacer, it's infuriating. But it's a losing battle, as all the major style guides switched over during the aughts, so future generations (or at least those select few that care) will all be single-spacing their sentences.
Edit: I hadn't considered that it's an HTML thing, not an individual site thing. I guess that makes sense, since that's why the non-breaking space ( ) is a thing. Also that's how I just double-spaced my sentences in this post.
Viola? What do stringed instruments have to do with this? Voilà !
Doublespace?Singlespace?Idon'tseewhatthebigdealaboutspacesisallabout.Irarelyuseanyspacesandpeopledon'thaveanytroublereadingwhatItype.Asanaside,itwasphyicallydifficulttotypethisentirepostwithouthittingthespacebaratall.
I seriously doubt that you were successful. I'm betting that you had to use the backspace key to remove a space at some point. ;^)
CTRL+F. Find " ". Replace with "".
Ya know, for the next time you decide to type without using spaces.
Double.
The kind of person who thinks single is the kind of person who watches Psycho and thinks Norman Bates wasn't all that bad.
Okay, I'll call.
Looking at your most recent multi-sentence comments (ignoring the ones where you ended sentences in "...") here, here, and here, it sure looks like you are partial to using the single space after a period.
(P.S. Note the Oxford comma usage. It's the only way to fly.)
Edit: Based on '04hokie's post above, it appears that this evidence is not enough to establish VTAlum's single-spacing bonafides, but I'm sure such evidence exists somewhere. ;^)
spill spill spill!!! I don't want to leave ANY spaces! FIT THE GAPPPPP!!!!!!
When writing papers, emails, etc. I double space, because old school grammar/typewriting rules are elegant.
When commenting on here, or texting, I don't even know because I tend to text/comment like I speak, and I usually don't remember half of the shit I say when speaking.
I'm actually very surprised at the disparity between single and double spacing. I was expecting a 50/50 split. Now I understand why I got outvoted for single spaces in my master's program last semester. I was honestly never taught to double space so it drives my crazy.
Oxford comma all damn day though
The answer is pie.
3.14 spaces? You rebel, you.
NERDS!
Single space baby.
I have had the uncanny privilege of being browbeaten by teachers in my youth to double space and browbeaten by professors to single space. I single space because I'm hip to that new hotness or whatever the kids say these days.
#UndergradInYour30s
It's the bee's knees.
I double space, and editors yell at me for it.
Speaking of Oxford commas, I use them in English... but they're forbidden in Spanish and Portuguese. There's probably a reason for that.
How often did the English fight the Spanish and Portuguese?
Not being up on Spanish history these days, I had to look these things up. England and Spain fought seven wars against each other. As far as I can find, England and Portugal have never fought one another.
I was going for Oxford itself being English and having no bearing on any of the Romance languages... but you get a leg for having me study world history for the first time in a long while.
I will usually wait a day, but can't hold out for two.
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The way I learned was to double space. I didn't know this wasn't universal until college. I also didn't know how worked up people could get about this until college.
I'm confused, I've never been told about double space vs. single space and don't know what's going on.
Same here. Im 50 and ive never heard of double spacing except for double line spacing for editing/comment purposes. I had no idea this was even up for discussion amongst people.
It depends on formatting style.
Chicago is single space always.
APA style is double spaces always.
MLA is single space, unless your editor/professor wants double space. Whichever you choose, be consistent.
Double space all the time.
I thought we agreed never to talk about politics on this website?
Double all day. Didn't even know single was a thing.
Y'all down vote this, but I'm about to speak that dam truth! Single spaces after periods are just another step in a long journey towards reducing the language to grunts and emojis. If they're teaching single space in schools, then I'm glad we home school. /s
But seriously, I will fight you over double spacing after periods
...
Space
Broke the double space habit a few years ago when I realized it looked old fashioned.
But I prefer new lines for new sentences whenever possible, makes it easier to read.
The big question now is, double space after a colon?
Always - you never want to get too close to the colon.
Why would you put a playground next to a sewage system?
That scene kills me every time. Leg for you sir!
used to double, now single. I am more bothered by spacing between headings and paragraphs.
single space is the new normal. it's a young man's game where people think in 140 characters or less.
Bronco, Pat and PJ all single space. 'nuff said
Fedora thinks spaces are under attack.
I eagerly anticipate this becoming the next anti-UNCheat meme
Narduzzi is definitely a double space guy; he would accuse the prior sentence to pushing off if he used single spaces.
I disagree - he is a single space guy who tends to omit them in man coverage.
Double space of course, you barbarians!
What if we put ten spaces between each word?
This is what double spacing looks like.
Depends how many pages am I short in my paper due tomorrow.
macraw83 has the answer above you. It'll work for sure.
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".
Now do any of you chuckleheads want to argue with he Complete Manual on Typography?
I thought not.
I'm definitely a double space guy, but as has been pointed out most modern word processors and websites will automatically convert the number of spaces to whatever the person who developed it desires. The real question is how do you make a noun ending in s possessive. The method I use of always using an apostrophe without adding an s afterwards is apparently rare, but it seems like the easiest and least ambiguous method to me. https://data.grammarbook.com/blog/apostrophes/apostrophes-with-words-end...
Interesting. I've always added an s on singular or collective nouns (class's, Mr. Jones's, canvas's, Texas's), but leave it off on plural nouns (classes', Joneses', guys', actresses'). Makes more sense phonetically, too, since Jones's would sound like Joneses.
Great, now Jones no longer looks like a real word to me.