Finally someone answered my ‘double space’ question

One day while cleaning up some copy for a customer I noticed that only a single space was used after each period. This confused me as I was taught you should always have a double space after that damn period. For quite some time friends and I have wondered and debated when this unannounced writing habit would have changed… and if it had really changed at all, maybe it was just a ‘web’ thing.

Last night I had found a great post on a good way to set up subversion on a Rails project over at the Maniacal Rage blog. When I opened my laptop this morning that same article was still in front of me and at the top I noticed it said ‘This is old content! The catacombs are a snapshot of content created from 2005-2007. For new stuff, visit Maniacal Rage.’ So naturally I did. It’s more of a tumble log now but I found this gem of an article. It is about common writing mistakes that finds all over the place and wants to avoid in 2008.

There it was, the answer I had been searching for…

“No double-space after periods (this is not 1965)

You don’t need to use a double-space after a period. We are no longer using fixed-width fonts on typewriters and nearly all writing and style guides (MLA, The Chicago Manual of Style, et cetera) suggest using only one space. It has been argued double-space is more accessible, but if you’re writing in 11px Verdana, double-space isn’t doing anything to help anyone and it makes you look like an old school teacher.”

So now I know… and knowing is half the battle, right?

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