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1 space or 2 after a full stop?

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1 space or 2 after a full stop?

Postby halfateabag » Sat Jun 27, 2020 10:41 am

It irritates me when there is only 1 space after a FS. At college I was taught it should be 2, being easier on the eye. Hubb only uses 1 space, so if I am involved before the scribe is sent, I always alter the spacing to 2. This article makes for interesting reading https://www.independent.co.uk/life-styl ... 37646.html Including the comment at the end of the article.

So what do you do, and why?

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Re: 1 space or 2 after a full stop?

Postby Pampy » Sat Jun 27, 2020 12:04 pm

2 for me - I think it looks neater and makes the text more readable.

Edit - this should be on the Chatterbox thread as it's not food related. perhaps Sakkarin could move it there?

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Re: 1 space or 2 after a full stop?

Postby PatsyMFagan » Sat Jun 27, 2020 12:14 pm

I only use one space. On my phone, one space after the full stop automatically changes the next letter to a capital one.

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Re: 1 space or 2 after a full stop?

Postby Pampy » Sat Jun 27, 2020 12:27 pm

PatsyMFagan wrote:I only use one space. On my phone, one space after the full stop automatically changes the next letter to a capital one.

Mine too - but I then add another space!

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Re: 1 space or 2 after a full stop?

Postby jeral » Sat Jun 27, 2020 1:18 pm

I use two, as taught and being easier to read as I'm used to that. However, there is a standard for newspapers about a few such things including when to use capitals, I'll try to find it. That says to use only one space as gaps interrupt one's reading flow.

Another forum's software automatically removes extra spaces, possibly to conform or maybe just to avoid wasting storage space.

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Re: 1 space or 2 after a full stop?

Postby Hickybank » Sat Jun 27, 2020 1:25 pm

One for me, life's too shot & it saves on paper :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

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Re: 1 space or 2 after a full stop?

Postby herbidacious » Sat Jun 27, 2020 1:30 pm

One space. It irritates me if there are two.

One space is house style for us so manuscripts that come in with two are a pain for the fiction department, although a find and replace will sort them out.

There is no particular reason to have two spaces. I don't think it does, objectively speaking, make it easier to read, but if you are used to it and prefer it, it might seem to.

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Re: 1 space or 2 after a full stop?

Postby scullion » Sat Jun 27, 2020 1:33 pm

one for me, too. when i was little i was taught that, when writing, you leave a one letter space and as i didn't do a typing course, that's what i still use. the computer does its own thing with gaps, i think, and changes them to what it prefers.

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Re: 1 space or 2 after a full stop?

Postby cherrytree » Sat Jun 27, 2020 1:35 pm

I have never heard of this and was very good at English. Life’s too short and at at present there are far more important things to worry about.

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Re: 1 space or 2 after a full stop?

Postby Suffs » Sat Jun 27, 2020 1:43 pm

At secretarial college I was taught two spaces after a full stop and still do this automatically ... but now most software can be preset to the preferred style so whichever you type doesn’t matter ... it comes out right :thumbsup

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Re: 1 space or 2 after a full stop?

Postby Earthmaiden » Sat Jun 27, 2020 2:08 pm

I think styles have changed very much since many of us here were taught, especially since the introduction of word processors and American styles. When I read letters typed by my grandfather during the war there are even more things that he and my grandmother took for granted to do when typing (grandmother was trained circa 1910).

I would once have put two spaces after the full stop, indented paragraphs and various other things I no longer do. I wonder what proper legal, medical etc. secretaries are taught nowadays.

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Re: 1 space or 2 after a full stop?

Postby halfateabag » Sat Jun 27, 2020 2:46 pm

Sorry for putting this thread in the wrong place :roll: I think the spacing might be an age thing with secretarial skills coming into play. I just find it a more comfortable read with 2 spaces, possibly a psychological thing....?

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Re: 1 space or 2 after a full stop?

Postby DEB » Sat Jun 27, 2020 2:56 pm

The rule on spaces made sense on a old typewiter which gave the same amount of space to all letters. So I and W took the same amout of space, so use of a double space following a full stop made it clear, and also on a well used typewritter the commas often looked like a full stop.

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Re: 1 space or 2 after a full stop?

Postby WWordsworth » Sat Jun 27, 2020 3:20 pm

I was taught 2 spaces after a full stop, 1 after everything else.

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Re: 1 space or 2 after a full stop?

Postby Stokey Sue » Sat Jun 27, 2020 3:28 pm

Yes, DEB, that’s what the graphic designer who taught us how to improve our PowerPoints and handouts said

Digital does what’s called kerning - adjusting the space round characters according to the width they really need not just fitting everything to the same grid, so the double space isn’t needed, except perhaps with a few fonts that don’t kern

Personally I do find the double space easier to read with some fonts, especially those with pronounced serifs, but that’s probably just me

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Re: 1 space or 2 after a full stop?

Postby Sakkarin » Sat Jun 27, 2020 4:31 pm

Having a typographic background, for me it has and always will be a single space. The double space was something secretaries dreamed up, exclusive to the typing pool, and the first job I always had to do when I got a text file was to strip them out and replace them with single spaces.

However rules are made to be broken, for instance when dashes replace commas, it should really be an em rule without spaces—like this—but I find it ugly so I cheat and use a hyphen - with a space either side - like that.

The books below below are a couple of masterworks on typography from my bookshelf by two of the greatest typographers of all time, Eric Gill (designed the Gill Sans Serif font) and Erik Spiekermann (designed the Meta font), both single spaced throughout.

And after all that, I admit that occasionally I do resort to double spaces, with very condensed fonts...

A fab guide to punctuation here, guess which rule I break all the time!?!
https://www.thepunctuationguide.com/period.html

Image

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Re: 1 space or 2 after a full stop?

Postby scullion » Sat Jun 27, 2020 5:01 pm

i think that's why i like the interrobang.

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Re: 1 space or 2 after a full stop?

Postby Sakkarin » Sat Jun 27, 2020 5:30 pm

Interrobang‽

Isn't that an ugly looking thing too!?!

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Re: 1 space or 2 after a full stop?

Postby scullion » Sat Jun 27, 2020 5:49 pm

no-o-o-o, it's sleek efficiency!

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Re: 1 space or 2 after a full stop?

Postby PatsyMFagan » Sat Jun 27, 2020 9:20 pm

I thought that was a typo, or malfunction on Scully's device :roll: :? :oops: ;) :lol:

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