Thursday, January 13, 2011

Type Much?

I disagree with this piece.  I really do.  Yes, really.  It argues that putting two spaces after a period is wrong.  I disagree.  It is hard enough to read student papers, for instance, when they no longer use commas, but not having sentences that clearly end.  And a new one begins.  But if we only use one space, then the sentences will seem to run together. Right. So, let me ask my readers: do you prefer one space? Or two?  I will not change, but I will know whether I should feel shame.  Or not.

1 comment:

Steve Greene said...

I'm going to make this easy on myself and paste my comment from Kevin Scott's facebook wall...
I'm not giving up on my two spaces, damnit. I love Farhad, but I still disagree. If the vast majority of educated people typing things think it is two spaces, than two spaces it is. This strikes me as similar to the ideas of prescriptive vs. descriptive grammar. Much like professional grammarians and dictionary writers may insist that "ain't" is not a word, if the majority of people use and understand it as such, then it most certainly is.