One Space vs Two Spaces

Photo by Carlos Paes (Link)

In junior high school, we were taught to add two blank spaces after every period in typewriting class. This was primarily due to the fact that typewriters had monospaced typefaces. Using two spaces made it easy to see the end of a sentence. For example:

Monospace font (Courier) with two spaces after the period:

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Morbi non ante sit amet purus facilisis imperdiet. Sed varius ante ut mauris iaculis et venenatis sapien condimentum. Phasellus ultricies, felis et mattis vulputate, erat felis feugiat libero, vitae interdum risus elit vel nisi.

However, since the mid-nineties, I haven't used a typewriter. Using a computer and word processing software, we can choose to use proportionally spaced fonts. Using proportionally spaced fonts, there is not need to add the extra blank space after the period. For example:

Proportionally spaced font (Times) with one space after the period:

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Morbi non ante sit amet purus facilisis imperdiet. Sed varius ante ut mauris iaculis et venenatis sapien condimentum. Phasellus ultricies, felis et mattis vulputate, erat felis feugiat libero, vitae interdum risus elit vel nisi.

Basically, I feel that adding the extra space is non-standard in the 21st Century. It is a waste of effort and over the long run, a waste of paper for exceptionally long documents. Finally, it is distracting. A good writer doesn't want to have anything distract his or her readers from the writing. So, in a nutshell, just add one space after each period. At ANMI Eikaiwa, we basically advise our students to use one space.

Jacci howard Bear at About.com¹ wrote on this topic and offers some excellent justifications for one space after the period. My favorite style manual, The Chicago Manual of Style,² also offers some reasons for the single space.

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1. Use One Space Between Sentences; Desktop Publishing Rules on Spacing After Punctuation by Jacci Howard Bear, About.com
http://desktoppub.about.com/cs/typespacing/a/onetwospaces.htm
2. The Chicago Manual of Style Online, 15th Edition
http://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/CMS_FAQ/OneSpaceorTwo/OneSpaceorTwo03.html

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