The Limits of Science

Will Truman

Will Truman is the Editor-in-Chief of Ordinary Times. He is also on Twitter.

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4 Responses

  1. Michael Cain says:

    Traditionalists, those using fixed-width fonts, and oldsters with long-ingrained muscle memory demand two spaces. Modernists, particularly those who have grown up doing everything in proportional fonts demand one. Coders ask, “Why isn’t it a system-wide option in the display device?”Report

    • Kazzy in reply to Michael Cain says:

      I was taught two spaces. When I started seeing people using one, I assumed they were dummies and needed to correct. Then I heard that the two space thing was really about type printers or printing presses or something and doesn’t matter. But I do find it visually distracting with the one space… I’m not sure if that is a force of habit or an actual visual thing.Report

      • Michael Cain in reply to Kazzy says:

        It’s situational for me. As far as typing, my right thumb does two spaces at the end of a sentence, it’s done that since I learned to type the summer after sixth grade, and I’m probably never going to be able to teach it otherwise. In situations where the text is left-justified and the same inter-word space is used everywhere, I find two spaces easier to read. In fully-justified text, where the inter-word spaces are variable, one space is visually better.

        Best of the Bloom County strips debating on the subject.Report

        • I used to be like both of you. I thought two spaces were/ought to be the default and it grated to look at something written with one-space. I also had a strong muscle memory of almost automatically doing two spaces (I was taught to type ca. 1987 in middle school).

          My current boss, however, is a big one-spacer. She also has a strong graphic design background and knows a lot about fonts and whatnot (things that make my eyes glaze over). She’s converted me to one-space’ism. And now, to me, two spaces grates on me the way one space used to.Report