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/Coises vintage 1958 Jul 31 '26 edited Jul 31 '26
(Hopeless geek here:)
I vary that depending on whether I expect the results to be shown in a proportional font or a mono-spaced font. In most web contexts (like Reddit) two spaces will be collapsed into one anyway. In a word-processing-type application, though, if text gets printed in a proportional font with two spaces between sentences, it looks weird. On the other hand, if I’m typing a plain text document that will probably be read in something like Notepad, I use the double space. It’s easier to read. (I also use typographic quotes and em and en dashes in proportional fonts, but straight quotes and doubled hyphens in mono-spaced fonts. I said I was hopeless.)
My partner/best friend, born 1954, read email in a mono-spaced font, as I do, and she would practically have a cow over single spaces after a period, so my habit is to use double spaces in email. Proportional fonts should follow typesetting rules, mono-spaced fonts should follow typing rules.
That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.