Mind = blown

[gdgrana]

How many of you knew that having two spaces after a full stop is technically incorrect?

I didn't, and shame on you for never correcting me. Even never having read my sentences is a poor excuse.

(My God, this is going to be a hard habit to break D:)

Comments

[tiffuchan.livejournal.com]

o.O wait, what? I'm confused.

[david-grana.livejournal.com]

At the end of a sentence with a period (a.k.a., a full stop), you're not technically supposed to place two spaces before the next one.

[tiffuchan.livejournal.com]

...Seriously?

EVERYTHING I KNOW IS WRONG T_T

[ursamajor]

It only became true once people switched over to computers, and typographers designed fonts that didn't require a two-space ... well, space (especially once we got away from using monospaced fonts), *and* that web browsers strip double spaces at least since HTML 2.0 (~1996 or so? they've been doing that since I got on the net.). It's a moderately recent development; my typing class in 1992 was taught on computers, and double-spacing between the end of a sentence and the start of a new one was still standard then.

ursamajor is a total typography dork

[hyounpark.livejournal.com]

No further comment necessary.

Obviously,
Hyoun

Re: ursamajor is a total typography dork

[ursamajor]

*snicker* Oh, honey. I'm a total AMATEUR when it comes to typography. I'm just a geek in general and an infovore ;)

Anyway, Wikipedia has some interesting background which makes sense - didn't realize single-spacing was fairly normal as early as the 50s in professional typesetting situations such as magazine publishing. But it was really the rise of desktop publishing that's mostly killed double-spacing.

[david-grana.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I was taught typing...er, 'round 1994, I believe, and we were still doing the double-space thing. I suppose the instructors - learned as they were on typewriters - have had trouble shaking it off.

[mbouloukoue.livejournal.com]

It helps that official MLA style didn't change over to the single-space method until very recently, and even then, it allows for both. I tried to break the habit, but I gave up.