In some circumstances, it isn't. I know I have to do a search-replace
on my stuff at work, because their style guide says no. It's an
ingrained habit--I can't NOT type two periods.
Some places that only work in electronic copy don't do it either.
I maintain the two spaces though. that's just me. :)
Jennifer
IMHO, one space is correct for manuscripts. The two spaces came from
a previous era when we used typewriters and dot matrix printers and
nonproportional fonts and two spaces after a period made the
documents much easier to read. Nowadays proportional fonts will
adjust the space after the period anyway, making it unnecessary to
use two spaces. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sentence_spacing
And here's the MLA ruling on the issue - one space.
http://www.mla.org/style_faq3
Okay. Having said that, there is still some controversy over the
issue. A recent poll by literary agent Nathan Bransford found only a
slight majority of his readers in the one space camp:
http://blog.nathanbransford.com/2009/01/can-i-get-ruling-one-or-two-spaces.html
Only the APA publication manual seems to want two spaces, but it
recognizes that:
>"the usual convention for published works remains one space after
>each period, and indeed the decision regarding whether to include
>one space or two rests, in the end, with the publication designer. . . ."
http://blog.apastyle.org/apastyle/2009/07/on-two-spaces-following-a-period.html
So, I'm in the one space camp.
If you've put two spaces in, it's easy to do a universal find and
replace. Just search for ".[space][space]" and replace it with
".[space]" It might take a little while, however for those of you
(like myself) who learned to automatically hit the space bar twice
after a period, to retrain yourselves to only hit it once. It did me anyway.
all best,
Nita
> Wow. I had no idea I was dating myself. I learned on a manual typewriter. (Actually paper and pencil typed onto mimeograph paper.) I will have to stop cursing my blog for converting it to a single space.
>
Cue yorkshire accent, Typewriter? We used to DREAM of using a typewriter, you were lucky, etc
;-)
Cheers
Simon
--
Software designer & programmer
+ author of the Hal Spacejock series