I have just been reading A practical guide to web typography, and was interested to find the following statement regarding double spacing after sentance ends :
“In the nineteenth century, which was a dark and inflationary age in typography and type design, many compositors were encouraged to stuff extra space between sentences. Generations of twentieth century typists were then taught to do the same, by hitting the spacebar twice after every period [full stop]. Your typing as well as your typesetting will benefit from unlearning this quaint Victorian habit. As a general rule, no more than a single space is required after a period, colon or any other mark of punctuation.”
I really don’t know why I’d never even thought about why I use double spacing. This read was followed by talking to a selection in my office and infact discovering that I was pretty much on my own with this. I began to wander why and was suggested that it was because I’d learnt typing whereas the others have not. A very plausable comment really and I am finding now in this post that actually breaking that habit is easier said than done.
I actually think that now I realise about this double spacing, to do it feels rather odd. It is really on the scale of things not a big thing to consider a negative, but it is something I would like to change. Why I had never even thought about this possibly concerns me also. The things you find out on a friday afternoon……
