Warning: this is way more than you really wanted to know. , I just researched this point at the end of last year. It turns out that it's a question of when you learned to type. This is another of those standards that have changed over time. Putting two spaces after a period was the standard until a few years ago. It was taught in typing classes in high school and at secretarial schools and was documented in the "style books" for many newspapers and large companies. In the days of "continuous width" fonts (like typewriters), it was the standard. More recently, with proportional spacing in type fonts and laser and other printers that can deal with proportional width fonts, the standard has evolved to the use of only one space after a period today. However, the use of two is still accepted as an alternative, although not preferred in the style books. So, in January, I decided to teach myself to switch to only one space after periods. It was one of my new year's resolutions. Considering I took a formal typing class in 1966 and have used a keyboard extensively ever since, teaching myself to change was quite a chore but by the end of January, I managed to drop those pesky unnecessary spaces. Just think of all the virtual trees that are being saved. Finally, for those who want references, here's the best one I found both because it's a great, humorous article, and because it has links to many other references on the question: http://www.prdaily.com/Main/Articles/The_rule_stands_One_space_after_a_perio d_Period_9587.aspx Cheers, Jim -----Original Message----- From: Speakup [mailto:speakup-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Albert Sten-Clanton Sent: Tuesday, April 09, 2013 7:40 PM To: 'Speakup is a screen review system for Linux.' Subject: RE: Dumb post to the Stargardts Facebook group Greg, I learned to put two spaces after a period ending a sentence when I learned to type. I don't know if conventions have changed, but that's why I do it. Al -----Original Message----- From: Speakup [mailto:speakup-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Gregory Nowak Sent: Tuesday, April 09, 2013 7:20 PM To: Speakup is a screen review system for Linux. Subject: Re: Dumb post to the Stargardts Facebook group On Tue, Apr 09, 2013 at 07:08:39AM -0700, Tony Baechler wrote: > I always proofread everything before I post, so hopefully my posts are > reasonably free of errors. Most people don't. It's amazing how many > mistakes you can catch with 30 seconds of proofreading. I think a part of this for blind and sighted alike is laziness. I know a few people who are just content to type what they have to say, and just hit send, because they don't feel like reading through what they wrote. These are people who are sighted and blind. I'm not assuming here either. When I mentioned this to them, this is what they told me, they don't feel like reading through casual writing. Unfortunately, I've looked through their professional writing too, and they are invariably surprised by the amount of errors I point out to them in such pieces of writing. On another note, I noticed a number of blind people, including yourself putting two spaces in between every sentence. I put in just one, because this is how I learned it in braille, and it just stuck. Is there some sort of significance to the two spaces thing, or is it just personal preference? Greg -- web site: http://www.gregn.net gpg public key: http://www.gregn.net/pubkey.asc skype: gregn1 (authorization required, add me to your contacts list first) -- Free domains: http://www.eu.org/ or mail dns-manager at EU.org _______________________________________________ Speakup mailing list Speakup at linux-speakup.org http://linux-speakup.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/speakup _______________________________________________ Speakup mailing list Speakup at linux-speakup.org http://linux-speakup.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/speakup
