No, not that kind of space war.

This kind: should one space or two follow a period between sentences.

I grew up using physical typewriters, so I was trained as a two-spacer. Desktop publishers tend to be adamantly in the one-space camp. The positions tend to be defended with a vehemence totally out of proportion to the apparent importance of the issue.

Turns out there was very little research on the issue, so a team of psychologists decided to give it a go, and found that people can read material faster that has two spaces. That hardly definitively settles the debate. Some people may consider aesthetics more important than speed, and they consider two spaces an aesthetic abomination. Hey, different sets of values happen.

the article is here, and sorry if you've hit your paywall limit of the Atlantic:
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/05/two-spaces-after-a-period/559304/

You can read about the details of the studies there, but I'd like to quote some of the reactions of people.

----------------
Nicholas Christakis, a professor at Yale University, wrote: “Hurray! Science vindicates my longstanding practice, learned at age 12, of using TWO SPACES after periods in text. NOT ONE SPACE. Text is easier to read that way. Of course, on Twitter, I use one space, given 280 characters.”

There’s a lot going on in that tweet, but you get the idea.

Others were less ecstatic. Robert VerBruggen, the deputy managing editor at National Review, shared the study with the comment: “New facts forced me to change my mind about drug legalization but I just don’t think I can do this.”

My colleague Ian Bogost tweeted simply, “This is terrorism.”

Full disclosure: I also shared a screenshot of the study’s conclusion that “the eye-movement record suggested that initial processing of the text was facilitated when periods were followed by two spaces.” I said about this only, “Oh no.”

I find two spaces after a period unsettling, like seeing a person who never blinks or still has their phone’s keyboard sound effects on. I plan to teach my kids never to reply to messages from people who put two spaces after a period. I want this study’s conclusion to be untrue—to uncover some error in the methodology, or some scandal that discredits the researchers or the university or the entire field of psychophysics.

So let’s look for that. Because this really does matter: In a time of greater and greater screen time, and more and more consumption of media, how do we optimize the information-delivery process?

In much the same way that we’re taught to write in straight lines from left to right, most of us have been taught that one way of spacing is simply right, and the other is wrong. Less often are we taught to question the standard—whether it makes sense, or whether it should change. But what is the value of education if not to teach children to question the status quo, and to act in deliberate ways that they can justify with sound, rational arguments?

Such an argument is extremely difficult to make when it comes to sentence spacing, because the evidence is not there for either case. The fact that the scientifically optimal number of spaces hasn’t been well studied was odd to Johnson, given the strength of people’s feelings on the subject. The new American Psychological Association style guidelines came out recently, and they had changed from one space to two spaces following periods because they claimed it “increased the readability of the text.” This galled Johnson: “Here we had a manual written to teach us how to write scientifically that was making claims that were not backed with empirical evidence!”
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So a study was designed, and two spaces does indeed increase the readability of the text. A personal pet peeve of mine is trying to read posts that are a single long block of congealed text with no white space at all. My eyes have great difficulty plowing through those posts. Unless I have a very compelling reason to do the plowing, I simply skip them.

The deeper question is why do questions like this develop such impassioned feelings? I mentioned in another thread, a small shooting war fought over the proper way to execute the religious ritual of crossing oneself. Other issues are the proper way to brew coffee, or, an RFM Greatest Hit, circumcision.

I'm a two spacer. But with the right amount of shame and pressure, I could probably change.

People who learned to drive before air bags think like this. I’m going to keep my hands at 10 and 2 even if it kills me.

I forgot where I read it, but the import was that two spaces is going to be highlighted as incorrect by MS word. But I use Word (and Publisher) and I haven’t noticed this.

RfM’s system won’t allow two spaces after a period. You can type them in, but when you hit ‘post message’ all but one will disappear.

I have a testimony that ghawd wants me to use two spaces, when it is allowed.

Also, I am a great fan of, close to worshipping, the Greek ghawd, Ellipsis, who watches over people trailing off, or teasing...

I am a fan of the ellipsis, the Oxford comma, and the second space.

Lot's Wife eats, shoots, and leaves while BoJ merely eats shoots and leaves.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/29/2020 12:15AM by Lot's Wife.

And I know where you stash your coffee, so I have the leverage.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AiXVUBPdt7k

(BTW: Utah owned & operated)

BoJ eats shoots, and leaves. There are rules. Otherwise, dogs and cats, sleeping together, left handed Sacrament passing, blue shirts and sleeveless tops.

Oh, the humanity!

There are two different spaces in most fonts: the m-space and the n-space. In print, the douhle space typed manuscript was changed to an m-space, much like underlining was changed to italic. A good word processor will automatically correct a double space after a period to a m-space though you can tweak this in the settings usually.

I do two. But I could change.

Why do questions such as this develop such impassioned feelings?

Whatever petty feelings well up to fight over the extra space may be what keeps someone in a cult. It’s the littlest damn thing that can all go away when you find the switch that unveils the reality that you’re - or let’s say - I’m - an idiot.

Do one space and laugh at the cult.

  I can't help it!  I WANT two spaces!  I am not just a fan; I'm an imperative.

  I'm also a fan of a little indentation at the start of a paragraph.  Is that such a bad thing?  Does that make me a bad person?

  It may well be that I'm a fan of rules and order.  Call me a rebel for not being a rebel.

No, EOD!

It was how we were taught in school, for goodness sake!

How many times have I read and reread a sentence, repeatedly, on this and many other online sites in an attempt to understand what the writer meant to convey and what word or words he or she left out in their haste to complete their thought? Don't get me started on recently-published books, of all things. What happened to paying a proof-reader or book editor to correct grammar, punctuation, or sense before publication?

(Not your book, EOD. Your's is fine. I keep wondering about the FEEBS, though.)

I tend to be a two-spacer, but much of the software I use converts two consecutive spaces into a period-space, unless I hesitate, in which case I get two spaces, no period. Grrr.

Now that I have scientific backing, I think I will become a more militant two-spacer, unless the software overlords interfere (coughRFMcough). I always sensed that I could scan text faster with two spaces between sentences. Starting a sentence with a capital letter is even more important for maintaining speed. It is possible to read a paragraph with no spaces at all, but that grinds reading speed to a near halt, and is about as much fun as throwing sand in your eyes.

I do kind of miss paragraph indents, but not enough to expend energy trying to fake them. If I'm on a real word processor, and the indents are there, OK-fine.

Two spaces, the Oxford comma, and if it wasn't in the OED, it wasn't English.

And spelling had to be British to be English — the Queen's English — and not "that barbaric American language..."

https://www.bbc.com/news/14130942

British people are used to the stream of Americanisms entering the language. But some are worse than others, argues Matthew Engel.

I have had a lengthy career in journalism. I hope that's because editors have found me reliable. I have worked with many talented colleagues. Sometimes I get invited to parties and meet influential people. Overall, I've had a tremendous time.

Lengthy. Reliable. Talented. Influential. Tremendous.

All of these words we use without a second thought were not normally part of the English language until the establishment of the United States.

The Americans imported English wholesale, forged it to meet their own needs, then exported their own words back across the Atlantic to be incorporated in the way we speak over here. Those seemingly innocuous words caused fury at the time.

The poet Coleridge denounced "talented" as a barbarous word in 1832, though a few years later it was being used by William Gladstone. A letter-writer to the Times, in 1857, described "reliable" as vile.
Find out more

Listen to Matthew Engel discuss 'Americanisms' on Four Thought on BBC Radio 4 on Wednesday 13 July at 2045 BST

Listen again via the BBC iPlayer

Or download the podcast

My grandfather came to London on the outbreak of World War I and never lost his mid-European accent. His descendants have blended into the landscape. That's what happens with immigration. It's the same with vocabulary migration.

The French have always hated this process with a very Gallic passion, and their most august body L'Academie Francaise issues regular rulings on the avoidance of imported words. English isn't like that. It is a far more flexible language. Anarchic even.