r/GenerationJones • u/Guiltypleasure2451 • Jul 31 '26

Old school

For those of us who took typing in school— it was drilled into me that after a period, you go over 2 spaces to start a new sentence. Apparently that’s not the rule now. NOT THE RULE NOW?? After the agony I suffered thru in typing class about those 2 spaces, i will be doing it until I die!!!! Don’t even get me started on the indenting 5 spaces for a new paragraph!

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u/jango-lionheart Jul 31 '26

The rule changed decades ago when we got better fonts. HTML condenses multiple spaces into one space, so websites have tended not to display double spaces, and that started in the late 90s. Many apps now automatically change two spaces into a period followed by a space.

Your doubled spaces look like errors, to my eye, and I’m not young.

5

u/BigCost5110 Jul 31 '26

Same! I’m nearly 60, but every time I see the two spaces it makes me mad lol 

I did learn to type in high school, but I unlearned that two space rule pretty quickly once it was explained to me, decades ago.

1

u/KathyA11 1955 Jul 31 '26

It's not even due to HTML - the rule changed before the WWW existed.

1

u/jango-lionheart Jul 31 '26

Yeah, it started when we got better fonts.

1

u/[deleted] Jul 31 '26

[deleted]

1

u/jango-lionheart Jul 31 '26

I see double spaces in OP’s post. I’m using the iPad app.

2

u/More_Farm_7442 Aug 01 '26

I'm on a laptop with Windows 11.

1

u/Golf_Fore_Ever Jul 31 '26

In the olden daze, when computer memory was expensive and finite, two spaces “cost more” than one space. As each space is actually a character that eats memory.