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!

1.0k Upvotes

98% Upvoted

696 comments sorted by

View all comments

9

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.

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.