Interesting, thanks Jim. I learned to type in elementary school in the early to mid 90's. I do remember being taught to start a new paragraph with five spaces when typing instead of two like in braille. That's all I recall from my typing lessons as far as multiple spaces go. Greg On Tue, Apr 09, 2013 at 08:17:38PM -0400, Jim Kutsch, KY2D wrote: > 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 > -- 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
