: Re: Should you use two spaces after a period, or just a single one? I had heard some debate on this topic, and I had always learned to use two spaces after a period. But it would seem there

@Gonzalez219

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In short, this is a disagreement based on technological generations.

When everyone was handwriting things, there was no issue - the space after a period was however large the writer thought looked good.

But with the first generation of typewriters, a decision had to be made. These were monospace typewriters, and with fixed spacing it was considered that two spaces after the period set it apart and made it clearer when the sentence ended, distinguishing more clearly from a comma.

With late-70's proportional spacing typewriters, and even more with the advent of word processors, the system became intelligent enough to adjust the space depending on the letters on either side, a process known as kerning in the typographical world. This allowed the space after the comma and the space after the period to be clearly distinguished even if they were both typed as a single space.

Thus, the debate: those of us who grew up with typewriters were taught "always use two spaces after a period," while younger folks who grew up with word processors were taught (frequently by Microsoft's grammar checker) to use a single space.

My answer? I try to use a single space in documents, but two spaces when I'm using a monospace font (such as comments in computer code). And the entry field on this site, which displays monospace while I type but publishes as proportional spacing, is really confusing me. :)

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