Like many of our PWOCers, I took keyboarding in High School only it was called Typing back then because computers hadn’t made their way into the classroom yet. Yes, it’s true. There was Life Before Laptops!
Typewriters used a system called monotype spacing, which simply means that every character was given an equal amount of space in the line of text. It didn’t distinguish between an i and a w in terms of the space they were given even though one takes up much less real estate than the other.
For this reason, experts (whoever they are) determined that adding an additional space after each sentence would help the human eye set one sentence apart from the next, hence the double space after each period rule.
Then word processors were developed followed by the personal desktop computer. With this new technology, characters were now given only the amount of real estate they actually needed marking the end of monotype spacing.
Where am I going with this? The end of monotype spacing also marked the end of the double space after each period rule.
So here’s the official memo ladies, break the habit and stop putting two spaces after each sentence. It’s a hard habit to break, but I have faith in you. I know you can do it!
For comments and suggestions, you can reach Tracy here.
