: 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

@Holmes449

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The problem is the tools. When it comes to fine points of typography, WYSIWYG is the wrong way to do it.

Typing and most editing should probably be done with monospace fonts. Reading should be done with beautifully typeset proportional fonts. (See Joel Spolsky's UI book.)

Details like how much wider an inter-sentence space should be than an interword space (if at all) should be a reader choice in any electronic format (e.g., ebooks, websites, etc.), and a book designer choice in hardcopy. Writers should be able to type any number of spaces between sentences. It's the tools' job to accommodate everyone, but most of them don't because they've been tainted by the mistaken notion that WYSIWYG is a good thing.

There are situations where ambiguity can creep in. Consider:

"Run!" I screamed.
"Run!" I screamed.

This first line is a single sentence. The second is two. They mean slightly different things. Without a difference in spacing distances, this distinction is lost. Admittedly, this is contrived, and many would consider the first line as an example of bad writing.

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