4w ago

I still find people who do this

At my last job, a bunch of the older folks did not realize they had a "two spaces" habit.

It's a clear tell.

Saw this meme and thought I'd point that out.

230 comments

I love how this implies that all of us in the over 40 crowd are desperately trying to avoid “tells” about our age.
“OH GOD PLEASE LET THEM THINK IM 28!!! I’LL NEVER DOUBLE SPACE AGAIN!!! NO CAP I’M THE FIRE GOAT!! BET.”
- That's gen z language. You should have called yourself the skibidi rizzler.
  
  Rizz predates Gen Apoc by quite a few centuries.
- fr fr on god
- Look boss! I have no useful experience but I will work a sub living wage.

The "two spaces" habit is because that was proper typing etiquette back in the day. You would lose points on on submitted papers if you didn't do that. I still do th two spaces when typing on a computer but use a single space on my phone.
- What’s funny is I finish my sentences with two spaces on my phone because that is the shortcut for a period and a space.
- Yeah, I think this is more of an "over 50" thing. Someone who's 40 today would have been born in 1984. That would have had them graduating high school in ~2002 - well into the computer age and not ever having to do anything on a typewriter.
  
  I'm 38 and I do it despite knowing it annoys people. It's just how I learned to type. Idgaf
  
  The MLA guidelines didn't change until 2019.
  
  I’m 35 and I learned two spaces in school growing up :shrug:
  Then later I learned it had changed so I stopped doing it. :double shrug:
  
  I'm mid 40s and was taught the double space practice, I guess it depends on when you first learned this stuff, it was very uneven teaching back then
  
  Yeah, I think this is more of an “over 50” thing.
  Someone born in 1976 is either 48 or 49 right now, which is well inside the "two spaces" era. So you've go a couple more years to clear these folks out before its an "over 50 thing".
  
  I'm 47. Was definitely taught the two spaces thing. We still did it on word processors when they replaced typewriters.
  
  42 here and was taught the two space method in high school typing class but eventually retaught over to one space maybe 15 years ago.
  
  I'm in the first half of my 40s. I was taught on typewriters in middle school and have been putting two spaces when using a physical keyboard ever since.
  
  41, and I am one of those people as well. I had no idea it's not something that should be done anymore. To celebrate, i only used 1 space in this post!
- Two spaces was taught in school typing classes. An artifact of mechanical typewriters I expect but that is why us olds do it that way.
- I don't know if it's just Samsung/Android, but when I do two spaces after a word on my phone, it actually adds a period.
- Two spaces on the phone will put the period in for you on most keyboards. So there's that.
- Oddly enough, I've found that many of my younger coworkers can't touch type. It makes sense that they won't use two spaces if they never learned that muscle memory. It seems unlikely that someone who's using the hunt and peck method would have that habit ingrained.
- Some messaging services will crush whitespace, which can make it really fucking fun to communicate things like guitar tablature or Python code snippets. Either way you might type double spaces but it only saves singles. I typed this message with double spaces but Lemmy displays it single spaced.
  
  I see double spaces between your sentences. Confirmed by copy/paste

I realize that I have a "two spaces" habit. I have no problem with it. I find the fact that you are so bothered by an extra space after the period to be bizarre.
- Hey. Stop breaking the pattern
- Only two?      Why not six?      It's more.
  
  I imagine because it's larger than the space between words (one space), so as to indicate a break in thought, but not long enough to cause the reading to be stilted.
  But if you're ee cummings, go right ahead...
  
  For that matter, why not zero? I put 2 spaces because it feels right.
- You have a typo habit.
  
  Sorry, what was the typo?

I do this. I'm under 40. It looks nicer.
- Too bad for you that HTML collapses all repeated whitespace, so double spacing after a period on the web does actual nothing.
  
  Not true. Whitespace in html is broken. It works or doesn't work based on inconsistent rules about what is considered "significant".
  "Typically, spaces which are visible to the user are referred to as significant, while spaces which are not rendered are considered insignificant. "
  https://blog.dwac.dev/posts/html-whitespace/#:~:text=Beyond%20single%20spaces%2C%20HTML%20is,same%20as%20having%20one%20space.
  
  My Lemmy app, Thunder, shows all the spaces, sadly.
- It looks nicer on paper.
  Looks like ass on a screen.
  
  So you put a CR and a line space instead? Maybe I'll start adding 3 spaces, to keep myself amused.

Who legitimately cares about this?
- I saw an analysis of the Cicada 3301 mystery which noticed a double space in the original final.jpg image to conclude it was probably written by an older and probably college educated American, as the practice is somewhat peculiar to Americans who took formal typing classes either in college before the 90's or in high school after the 90's.
- This is something you probably want to care about when you're producing text in some kind of professional capacity, for e.g. a newspaper, book, documentation, or something like that. You will need a manual of style to maintain consistency of the work across multiple authors. Using a single space is a universal rule in every typesetting/style manual I've ever seen, so it's the correct choice in that case.
  If you're just out typing stuff in informal correspondence, as a hobby, or otherwise, I don't really think you need to care.
  
  Judging by the editorial standards I've seen from journalists recently (or lack thereof), I don't think this is high on their list of concerns.
- Editors and former editors. As the latter, I find it distracting and impossible not to notice.
  
  Sounds like a "you" problem. I have no issue with it. IMO, wnatnig others to cofnorm to something becuz its a distraction to u speaks more about you're shortcummings in adaptability and acceptance then it does aboot the author and there righting skillz. If too spaces after a period bothers you that much, I got some bad news bears about the younger generations...

If you fucking illiterate children are going to murder language with "u" and "ur", I'll put two spaces after the period, which is the right goddamn way to format anyway.
- The double spaces is a holdout from the age of typewriters, where spaces were all the same size. Modern fonts (non-monospaced anyway) already have different spacing between words compared to the spacing after a period.
  If “ur” and “u” don’t belong in normal communication, neither does two spaces after a period.
  
  Monospaced font is great though.
  
  Putting two spaces after a period and using "u" and "ur" are not even on the same level. You can't say one is the same as the other, using a letter to replace a word is next level. A double space can almost be missed honestly.
  
  Imagine being so deprived as to grow upwithour a typewriter.
  
  False equivalency.
- Yep it looks and reads better than a single space.
- Well   said!
- You know, that actually doesn't bother me as much as some other things. Your never going to guess what truly bothers me more than the short hand of u and ur. At least with the u and ur they have taken everything out of it.You're example seems to... Okay I was going to do a you're and make it possessive in this sentence but my aneurysm can only last so long.

And I'm going to keep doing it. Fight me.

What. A. Weird. Thing. To be annoyed. By.
- Eye no rite?
- yEAH.

2 spaces? Bullshit, I put 1 tab.
- Might wanna double it to be safe.

What's the problem?
- there isnt one
  
  Lol teh oldz

Two spaces after a period was the way typography was taught and graded through the late nineties and maybe later. On a keyboard my thumb automatically double taps the space bar after a period. No thought, just reflex. On a phone, I never type a period. My keyboard app automatically inserts a period after a double space.
- Someone above said that the standard didn't change until 2019. I was never taught to double space after a period, but I went to poor schools with bad teachers.

Because it makes it easier to read so bite me.

I will not stop. And whining about it will make me double down.
- 4 spaces after a period?
  
  Double it!

No thanks, I want to improve the readability of my work.
- Single spaces look odd to me, and yes, I'm in my 50s. But it does improve readability to me, breaks the thoughts apart just a bit. Not like we're still indenting every paragraph!
  
  Not like we’re still indenting every paragraph!
  Wait, we're not? I haven't been in school for a long time so...
- You don't need to. We don't use mono space font anymore. You can just read it normally.
  
  Whoa there, some folks still do. They're more accessible for dyslexic students, and also allow ASCII formatting for quick and easy questions creation on the fly.
- This is the first time I'm hearing about double spaces. For me it seems that it would have the opposite effect.

This is literally how you're supposed to write. I ain't throwing out the rules of English just because you didn't learn it.
- Supposed to according to whom? AP style, which is the standard for most English non-academic content, says one space. https://x.com/APStylebook/status/1254786139539427329
  (Sorry for using Twitter as a source, but it's straight from AP)
- I don't know why I love the sassiness in this reply. I'm 42 and I do it too.
- It is not literally how you're supposed to write. It's an optional convention that has been increasingly falling out of favor over the decades.
  Sentence Spacing (Wikipedia)
  The desired or correct sentence spacing is often debated, but most sources now state that an additional space is not necessary or desirable. From around 1950, single sentence spacing became standard in books, magazines, and newspapers, and the majority of style guides that use a Latin-derived alphabet as a language base now prescribe or recommend the use of a single space after the concluding punctuation of a sentence. However, some sources still state that additional spacing is correct or acceptable. Some people preferred double sentence spacing because that was how they were taught to type. The few direct studies conducted since 2002 have produced inconclusive results as to which convention is more readable.
- It is, and the confusion surely stems from the internet wherein HTML renderers (all web browsers) automatically collapse multiple spaces into one. Don't believe me? Every sentence in this post has two spaces in between.
- This is literally how you're supposed to write.
  How do you hand write a double space?
  
  Leave a slightly larger gap?
- bark on em 👺

It was designed to stop typewriters from sticking. They taught the habit to me on a IBM computer. It is irrational, but so is life.
- IIRC, this is the reason why we have the QWERTY layout as well.

Watch me write fuck you in cursive.
- I only write in cursive. I find it to be more legible for the recipient than my atrocious printing, and more comfortable for me to write.

no, i dont think i will.

It appears you've triggered the elderly
- We've triggered the kids with spaces. SPACES
  
  Kids want all the spaces to be safe, except for the spaces spaces. Fuck those safe spaces spaces.

Understood. I will use three spaces from now on.

If this is bugging you you deserve to be annoyed._ You're looking for reasons to be miserable._. You’re doing it to yourself. _ You give your power away to easily.
- I think your rite. OP shouldn't of let themself get so bothered.
- Too

What does my Oxford Comma use say about me?
- That you aren't uncultured swine. Or at least that you are considerate enough to put in the effort to make the task of reading your posts as painless as possible.
  
  Commas create clear communication, constructing consistent comprehension clarity, clearly.
- I, too, use the Oxford comma
  
  And yet you didn't.
- It depends. Sometimes you need it, sometimes you don't.
  It only comes up in a series of three items. The comma before the last item is the Oxford comma.
  If the last two items could be confused as the same item, you need the Oxford comma to separate them.
  Sometimes they are the same item, and adding the Oxford comma there makes it confusing.
  
  I assume the people down voting this are the half of the country that is illiterate.

Why would anyone do that, and why would anyone whine about an extra space anyway?
Sorry, but this is a lot of fuss over nothing. Coming from 40+
- I grew up with this. Typing class (as in typewriters) forced this behavior on me and I was graded on it. It's a tough habit to break when your formative keyboard habits are suddenly wrong. It's not that easy to stop when you've been doing it that way for thirty years.
  
  I had typing classes too, on type writers (45+ here) and never did double spaces. Why would you do that?
  
  I don't have too strong opinions about the people who write like this.
  But there's a special place in hell for those creating websites and apps that render those spaces instead of automatically truncating to one space like the fucking Html standard expects. They have to go out of their way to enable worse looking writing.

How is that worse than people who use run on sentences and no punctuation?
- Who said it was worse?

Is this from that Oatmeal guy? He's always seemed very easily annoyed.

I use two spaces and you are all "no cap fr fr skibidi Ohio fam."
Fuck off.

33 here and this is how I was taught

We can also clearly tell that no one at your work cares and they probably think you're an annoying little shit.

I had a guy review a document I wrote go through and "correct" all of my spaces by adding another one.

I live in the middle. I couldn't care less about either way.
- After your first sentence here, I initially thought you were going to say "I leave one and a half spaces after a period." And I immediately started wondering "howwww???"
  
  There are special symbols in Windows for half spaces, I think it's Alt+2009.

You're entitled to your opinion. Congratulations.

I'm under 30 and I do this when not on my janky phone keyboard. It just feels right lol

Such a zoomer meme.

I'm over 40. I do what I want.

The more acronym/initialism oriented English gets, the more that double space makes sense.

Two spaces is very ingrained. Will probably never stop. Didn't even know the recommendation had changed until very recently. Why?
- If you are double spacing when typing this comment, your autocorrect is cutting it down to one. This is one. This is two.
  
  And this is an excellent example of why my reaction to OP is:
  
  Yes, I'm on my phone, my phone does what it wants.

Very interesting.   I hadn't noticed that before.   Something to consider.   I'll keep an eye out for that. /s
- You missed a space after your final period
  
  ur not asposta do it afta da last purriod

I always thought that it is because, after a period, in theory, you would take a slightly longer pause when speaking. Like the break between the last sentence and this sentence in your head.

Yeah, I’m old. When I was in high school, I was required to take a typing class before I could take a computer class. A computer class on the Apple ][e. (I said I was old!) On a typewriter, it was correct to add 2 spaces after a period, and that’s how I learned. I did it on the computer for a long time, but I eventually broke the habit. It wasn’t easy to break that muscle memory though!

While I'm definitely in the "single space" camp myself, and have previously been pretty annoyed by people who still use two spaces, I actually like how often I see the double spaces on Lemmy because it reminds me that there are quite a few people over 25 on here. I'm not quite 40, and I don't think I was ever taught anything other than single space, but I have friends that still do two spaces.
- You can't do double spaces on Lemmy unless you're using some kind of app that doesn't automatically condense whitespace for some reason. In browser you can have any amount of spaces consecutively and they'll just get condensed into one.
  Or people are deliberately using nonbreaking spaces specifically to make it not do that, for a gag. In which case, that's some real dedication just for a bit.
  
  Apparently the Thunder app doesn't automatically condense whitespace.

Not 40, but I still do it. When learning to type on a computer in school it was a requirement. I don’t mind though because now when I do it, periods are automatically added for me in place of the first space.
- Bingo. 44 yr old here. I blame Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing back in the early 90s. I still sometimes do the double space at work when I'm on a ~~typewriter~~ keyboard.

I am under 40, but had "two spaces after a period," drilled into me as a kid. I only broke the habit in the last year, and it still feels weird every time I use just one.
- Were you ever given a reason for being taught to use two spaces?
  
  Were you ever given a reason for not?

What is a two space habit? I've never seen this in my life. I'm in my late thirties. Is this that's done only in America again?
- Back in the days of monospaced fonts, it was common practice to put two spaces after the period ending a sentence to make text more readable. It's not an issue now that fonts are dynamically spaced, making words appear more "natural" and sentences thus easier to parse, but when every character had the exact same width it was hard to determine the "flow" of a sentence since it wasn't easy to see where it ended. I remember being taught in kindergarten/first grade to use two spaces after a period, even though we weren't using monospaced fonts then (to the best of my recollection). That's why this is an "over 40" thing - it was taught to older generations to accommodate the technology at the time, but nobody ever went back to "unprogram" this from their minds.

I was taught to do it this way in computer class 25 years ago. But I quit the habit sometime in the mid 2010s.

30s, and that's how I was taught to type, so...
- 29, and yeah: 12pt Times New Roman, double spaced lines max, and two spaces after the period always...

I love that none of the commenters on this post extolling double-spacing actually have visible double-spacing in their comments.
- I double space on the computer. I have to physically fight my phone to double space on it. I'd assume that most people browse Lemmy on their phone too?

My god, think of all those wasted bytes just storing extra spaces. /s
- A space does take up a character

Two spaces on a modern phone automatically gives you a full stop. Checkmate, atheists

There's a user at work who puts quadruple ellipses after each sentence he types. It's just like he holds down . for a few seconds. I hate it.
- Gads... I hate when people do that... Like ... .what even is punctuation??? I'll never know.......
- Ah, yes. Not a full stop, the full-complete-total-entire-unequivocal stop.
- that's so passive aggressive
  
  I guess it is. Guy is a dick and dumb as a brick lol

I had the good fortune of attending a university that used the APA style guide, which gave me the opportunity to break free from the horrible MLA format that I learned in high school. So, no double space after a period for me, despite my advanced age.
Note: I understand that this is a typewriter thing, but while I had occasion to use a typewriter as a kid and teen, they were mostly no longer relevant already and I was never really taught anything directly related to typewriter typing. It is ridiculous that MLA stuck with that rule for so long (I don't know if they have dropped it since).

It's about the typeface. Back in the day of manual or electric typewriters, we had monospace fonts, meaning that every character had the same width. A lowercase "i" got the same horizontal width as an uppercase "M".
Now we have word processors and proportional fonts, and the spacing after a period is built into the typeface.
One space after a period is correct, unless you are using Courier (or similar).
- Exactly. If you're using a typewriter, go ahead and hit space twice. If you're using a computer with variable width fonts that does the typesetting for you, then don't.
- Of every single comment in this thread, yours is the one actually addressing the most important factor that influenced this custom. This was imposed by schools who only had typewriters. Newspaper and publishing didn't even think about this because on printing plates they had kerning to worry about when setting each letter.
  Same with the 1 and a half or double space between lines. Most people never consider to think that it was taught that way so teachers had space to write notes on your papers. Books and magazines don't need that much space and it actually looks ugly and makes reading harder. Outside of schools, typography is wildly more diverse and adaptable than the narrow habits taught to the amateur touchtypist.

I never did that, even on a typewriter. Word processors do a decent enough job of spacing and it’d just look weird online.

I'm still a couple of years under 40. I only did this when I needed to extend the page count of a paper. However, my old man punctuation thing is that when I use commas before and after I, "quote," something on a sentence. Also, I don't care what Microsoft Word defaults are now, I write in Times New Roman.
- Our typing software had it that way in 2000, so if you wanted to pass, you would have had to type 2 spaces after a period. Originally I think it is was about fonts not being so easy to seperate text apart so it would be easier to notice a thought being started/ended when skimming

Just use Find/Replace.
Find (double space) Replace with (single space)

230 comments