[bkcunningham1]

Originally Posted by Pturner

I love two spaces after the period. A period is a longer pause than a coma. So say what you will, two spaces at the end of a sentence flows like a good conversation. It's like leaving enough space for a full stop.

Look what the cat dragged in! Hello stranger.

[Topspinmo]

Originally Posted by redwitch

I blame the court system. At first, briefs were limited to a certain page length. Once we legal secretaries learned how to manipulate a computer so that we could add our attorneys' extra five pages to fit the limited length, the courts went to word length. Well, a word was considered five characters regardless of length. Two spaces added several words and, thus, one space it was.

I blame every thing on Lawyers

[Bonanza]

Originally Posted by bkcunningham1

Here's what the linked article states:...Here’s why: Back when we used typewriters, every character was given the exact same amount of space on the page. That meant the letter i was given the same amount of space as the letter m, even though it clearly didn’t need it. This is called monospaced typesetting and it’s, well, spacey. We needed that extra space between sentences to make it easier to see the beginning of new sentences.

Word processors and computers and everything that is not a very old typewriter use mostly proportionally spaced fonts, which adjust spacing to the size of the letter...

The linked article was not correct. All typewriters were not monospaced and I was surprised the article didn't mention that. In the 60s, IBM manufactured a proportional typewriter which they called the IBM Executive. I believe they made a couple different model Executives, but I wouldn't swear to that. I had the opportunity to use that typewriter but didn't like it and went back to the Selectric, which I loved. I remember that the backspace on the Executive was also proportional which was necessary for correcting errors.

[blueash]

Originally Posted by Carl in Tampa

The lady who wrote the article did a follow up in the comment section where she acknowledged that the rule had changed back to two spaces.

"Well, here’s a new wrinkle: One of my facebook readers pointed out the although APA guidelines at one time reduced the required spacing after a period from two down to one, they returned it to two in 2009 in the 6th Edition (see section 4, first bullet)."

Perhaps she should have just removed her posting.

By the way, no "rulemaker" is going to prevent me from doing two spaces after a period at the end of a sentence.

Well, I don't really care about one or two spaces. But it is a bit misleading perhaps to cite the American Psychological Association as an authority on punctuation. There are some accepted arbiters of grammar and the APA is not one of the major ones although their style is used in several social science journals. Most journals and newspapers have come to the opposite conclusion including the AP, JAMA, Wikipedia, NYTimes. And the Chicago Manual of Style is rather clear on its one not two choice. So I really don't think that "she should have just removed her posting."

So the lady in the article did not acknowledge that the rule had changed back to two spaces. She in fact correctly stated that the rule is one space but then acknowledged that one organization had gone back to two.