There’s also the fact it’s wrong, no matter what some people seem to think. Given younger generations’ propensity to drop periods altogether, the double space seems to be going the way of the dinosaur, even in the most stodgy and traditional of fields. APA, MLA, and Chicago Manual of Style all recommend one space. Even these fields have recently updated to adopt modern conventions. There have long been hold outs in fields like psychology and the medical field. What, then, of the second space after a period? Two Wrongs Don’t Make a Right Today, however, you can turn on invisibles and see exactly where your spaces and returns are. Most of the first word-processing programs were rather unsophisticated, so not only were they not programmed to realize you needed a space after your period, they also didn’t have the “invisible” characters: spaces, hard returns, soft returns, and paragraph markers to show you where exactly your spaces were and what they looked like. Word processors still operate much the same way typewriters did, however, so you still have to input the space after a period by yourself. Touch-screens have further revolutionized our typing, predicting our next words and allowing us to drag-and-drop letters. For one thing, the keys of modern keyboards have a lot less resistance on them, making it much easier to push them. As programming became more sophisticated and the era of the manual typewriter faded into memory, typing itself has changed. In fact, the QWERTY keyboard is modeled after the typewriter, and most word processors mimicked typewriter output in the early days. The need to put two spaces in didn’t evaporate with the advent of the personal computer and the word processor. Periods sometimes got lost, so the convention of putting two spaces in was established. Typewriters tended to use monospaced fonts, which have the same amount of horizontal space between every character. Once upon a time, you had to hit the space key not once but twice in order to put the correct amount of space between a period and the next letter. (Pro tip: If you’re editing, always turn your invisibles on. If you want to see for yourself, you can always turn on “invisibles”-the characters in word processors that show you where your spaces are, where soft breaks are, and where hard breaks are. Editors and proofreaders will notice it relatively quickly. If you don’t, Word or Pages or whatever program you happen to be using will tell you you’ve got a spelling error, as the final word of the previous sentence and the first word of the next are run together-that is, all the characters (including the period) are flush up against one another. You need to tap once in order to get the space after the period. In modern word processors, this results in two spaces after your period. Some people hit the space bar twice after they finish typing a sentence. Two Spaces after a Period: A Relic of a Past Era We don’t need to add two spaces after a period any longer. The thing is, our technology has evolved. Now we only interface with code if we want to.
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