NWR: Help settle a dispute - English majors.

You know when you end a sentence it's 'space, space' then a new sentence....

My brother says I'm outdated and you no longer need two spaces. That single spaces b/w sentences is correct. Is he right?

I'm an English major and teacher and in the schools they are still teaching with two spaces after a period and i haven't heard differently. See what happens when they deem that Pluto is no longer a planet...all hell breaks loose!

in print space, space is still the most proper...but one space is becoming common practice electronically and people aren't flinching

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Posted by JoesFutureWife

I'm an English major and teacher and in the schools they are still teaching with two spaces after a period and i haven't heard differently. See what happens when they deem that Pluto is no longer a planet...all hell breaks loose!

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!

i always did two spaces too but now when you do that in word it comes up with a green line under it to correct. i dont get how they can just change the rules like that.

whoa - what!? Seriously!? You can use 1 space?!

I'm protesting the one space rule!

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Posted by beachbum05

I'm protesting the one space rule!

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me toooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo.

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Posted by LuvMyAlfonse

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Posted by beachbum05

I'm protesting the one space rule!

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me toooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo.

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it is blasphemous!

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Posted by LuvMyAlfonse

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Posted by beachbum05

I'm protesting the one space rule!

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me toooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo.

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I noticed when I bought laptop with vista a few months ago that my 'word docs' were correcting double spaces to single spaces. I hadn't questioned why until this thread!

I'm an elementary school teacher, but I also majored in English and have a lot of publishing experience. Here's what was explained to me by the news editor when I worked as a typesetter at a local newspaper in Queens.....

In recent times, it's now acceptable to type only 1 space in between a period and the capital letter that begins the next sentence. Before the advent of computer-generated fonts, when people still used typewriters, each letter was given the same amount of space, whether it was a lowercase L, like this, l, or a much wider letter that takes up more room, like a lowercase m. They even gave names to the dashes.... 'en' dash for the small one - and 'em' dash for the wider one — . Both were given the same amount of space to take up in between spaces, so the 'em' dash took up most of the room, while the 'en' dash left some extra space on the sides.

When computer fonts and typefaces became the norm, monotype spacing became a thing of the past, or was only used for fonts that mimic typewritten letters, like Courier. Spacing was no longer a concern, and if you use a font like Times and then type the same sentence underneath in Courier, you can see the difference in spacing. Anyway, now it's perfectly acceptable to type only one space in between sentences.

I learned to type the 2 spaces when I took typing class as a senior in high school (think back, waaaaaaay back to 1992!!) It took me a long time to get used to 1 space, and now I can't imagine going back!

Hope this LONG explanation helps!!

PS..... There's a great book that many in publishing consider 'the bible' called 'Words Into Type.' I have a really old copy somewhere here, but if you check a recent version, it may have what is considered acceptable by today's standards.