this post was submitted on 24 Sep 2026
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Asklemmy
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I miss double spaces after periods.
We were taught single space in the mid 90s, so that can't be too recent.
I learned on a typewriter in '91, we got docked if we didn't double space.
I was taught two spaces in the 90s and didn't find out it's changed until maybe a couple years ago.
It hasn't changed, you were just taught an overly specific application and not taught that it was such.
LUXURY!BACKINMYDAYWEDIDNTHAVESPACES.DONTGETMESTARTEDONTHISLOWERCASENONSENSE
We…don’t do this anymore? I can’t even recall what I’ve been doing for this for the last 20 years.
Our browser is going to fingerprint us through this habit and we're going to get served knee replacement ads because of it.
Autocorrect on Microsoft products turns double-space into single space by default. Gotta turn that shit of every time, it’s very frustrating.
It annoys me when people put double spaces after periods, but i guess it was necessary in the typrewiter days? Idk
Don't do that unless it's a monotype font, please.
Sincerely, typesetters everywhere.
Why not? I want to have more white space between my sentences than I do between words in the same sentence. I’m writing emails, business crap, and Lemmy posts; nothing that’s going to see any love from a typesetter. Is there some more appropriate way to get what I want than hitting the spacebar twice between sentences?
Well it's okay to break rules, right? So long as you understand how and why.
Your version of readability skews from the norm established over centuries. Fine! Just don't expect the rules to bend to you.
Readability for author and reader vary. Whose reading comprehension is more important? Your call.
In some cases, it might be appropriate to break paragraph convention and isolate important sentences.
Print publishing has 500 years of convention built on trial and error.
As a person who learned to type on a typewriter, and then became a typesetter and publisher, and now does a lot of editing, double spaces are only of use in a monospace type face where there is no kerning possible.
Otherwise, type with variable spaces between the letters plus variable letter sizes is physically harder to read when there are extra gaps between the sentences, despite the way you were trained (by boomers, probably) to type.
In pre-secondary education I was taught to double-space, but post I was told to single IIRC. I prefer single personally.
Interestingly, typing two spaces on my phone is replaced by a period and a single space. It's like a vestigial mechanic from that practice. It's aware of the context of what a double space was used for, but it serves a totally different purpose to not have to type a period.