At my last job, a bunch of the older folks did not realize they had a “two spaces” habit.
It’s a clear tell.
Saw this meme and thought I’d point that out.
I use two spaces and you are all “no cap fr fr skibidi Ohio fam.”
Fuck off.
For those of you as stunned as I am that Word now marks two spaces as an error, there’s how to fix it courtesy of Microsoft Answers
Although current convention is to use just one space when using proportional fonts (two spaces were used in typing because most typewriter fonts were monospaced), you can select which convention you want to use and have Word flag exceptions (or not). At File | Options | Proofing, beside “Grammar and Refinements,” click Settings… In the Grammar Settings dialog, scroll down to Punctuation Conventions. You’ll see that you can select one or two space or “don’t check.” As to why this just started, probably no one can tell you, but this is how to fix it.
I’m over 40. I do what I want.
30s, and that’s how I was taught to type, so…
29, and yeah: 12pt Times New Roman, double spaced lines max, and two spaces after the period always…
Very interesting. I hadn’t noticed that before. Something to consider. I’ll keep an eye out for that. /s
You missed a space after your final period
ur not asposta do it afta da last purriod
Just use lots of lube, you’ll be fine
👏 top class dad joke, cheers from a dad
I love that none of the commenters on this post extolling double-spacing actually have visible double-spacing in their comments.
I double space on the computer. I have to physically fight my phone to double space on it. I’d assume that most people browse Lemmy on their phone too?
It’s a major pet peeve of mine to see two spaces after a period.
Holy shit the traffic on this post is crazy
It’s better to have two spaces after periods with most fonts. It’s not good when the commas and periods blend together. Nice to know at a glance where the ends of sentences are. If you look at it with fresh eyes, forgetting about what you’re supposed to think, you’ll probably end up with two spaces after periods, at least most of the time.
I love how this implies that all of us in the over 40 crowd are desperately trying to avoid “tells” about our age.
“OH GOD PLEASE LET THEM THINK IM 28!!! I’LL NEVER DOUBLE SPACE AGAIN!!! NO CAP I’M THE FIRE GOAT!! BET.”
That’s gen z language. You should have called yourself the skibidi rizzler.
I’d eat a bullet first
Rizz predates Gen Apoc by quite a few centuries.
fr fr on god
Look boss! I have no useful experience but I will work a sub living wage.
The “two spaces” habit is because that was proper typing etiquette back in the day. You would lose points on on submitted papers if you didn’t do that. I still do th two spaces when typing on a computer but use a single space on my phone.
What’s funny is I finish my sentences with two spaces on my phone because that is the shortcut for a period and a space.
Yeah, I think this is more of an “over 50” thing. Someone who’s 40 today would have been born in 1984. That would have had them graduating high school in ~2002 - well into the computer age and not ever having to do anything on a typewriter.
I’m 38 and I do it despite knowing it annoys people. It’s just how I learned to type. Idgaf
The MLA guidelines didn’t change until 2019.
I’m 35 and I learned two spaces in school growing up :shrug:
Then later I learned it had changed so I stopped doing it. :double shrug:
Yea 39 checking in, that’s the way I was taught to type in school as well. I never broke the habit and still do double spaces after a full stop.
I’d honestly be more surprised that someone could tell enough to be bothered.
I can’t not notice it. It jumps out at me, the exact same as when someone does a non-three-dot ellipse.
I feel like the Monty Python priest with the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch
“Three shall be the number thou shalt count, and the number of the counting shall be three. Four shalt thou not count, neither count thou two, excepting that thou then proceed to three. Five is right out.”
The non three dot ellipse gets worse on some devices that replace the “…” (three individual dots) with ‘…’ (one symbol with three dots that have slightly different spacing to the three individual dots). “…” looks wrong but it’s worlds better than “….”.
31 here. I learned double first, and at some point it switched to single. I don’t remember when.
I’m mid 40s and was taught the double space practice, I guess it depends on when you first learned this stuff, it was very uneven teaching back then
Yeah, I think this is more of an “over 50” thing.
Someone born in 1976 is either 48 or 49 right now, which is well inside the “two spaces” era. So you’ve go a couple more years to clear these folks out before its an “over 50 thing”.
I’m 47. Was definitely taught the two spaces thing. We still did it on word processors when they replaced typewriters.
42 here and was taught the two space method in high school typing class but eventually retaught over to one space maybe 15 years ago.
I’m in the first half of my 40s. I was taught on typewriters in middle school and have been putting two spaces when using a physical keyboard ever since.
41, and I am one of those people as well. I had no idea it’s not something that should be done anymore. To celebrate, i only used 1 space in this post!
I don’t know if it’s just Samsung/Android, but when I do two spaces after a word on my phone, it actually adds a period.
Two spaces was taught in school typing classes. An artifact of mechanical typewriters I expect but that is why us olds do it that way.
Two spaces on the phone will put the period in for you on most keyboards. So there’s that.
Oddly enough, I’ve found that many of my younger coworkers can’t touch type. It makes sense that they won’t use two spaces if they never learned that muscle memory. It seems unlikely that someone who’s using the hunt and peck method would have that habit ingrained.
Some messaging services will crush whitespace, which can make it really fucking fun to communicate things like guitar tablature or Python code snippets. Either way you might type double spaces but it only saves singles. I typed this message with double spaces but Lemmy displays it single spaced.
I see double spaces between your sentences. Confirmed by copy/paste
I realize that I have a “two spaces” habit. I have no problem with it. I find the fact that you are so bothered by an extra space after the period to be bizarre.
Hey. Stop breaking the pattern
Only two? Why not six? It’s more.
I imagine because it’s larger than the space between words (one space), so as to indicate a break in thought, but not long enough to cause the reading to be stilted.
But if you’re ee cummings, go right ahead…
For that matter, why not zero? I put 2 spaces because it feels right.
You have a typo habit.
Sorry, what was the typo?
The extra space. It is an error.
According to the style guidelines you follow, maybe. But a “typo” is always a mistake, and my use of the double space after the period is very much an intentional stylistic choice.
I do this. I’m under 40. It looks nicer.
Too bad for you that HTML collapses all repeated whitespace, so double spacing after a period on the web does actual nothing.
Not true. Whitespace in html is broken. It works or doesn’t work based on inconsistent rules about what is considered “significant”.
"Typically, spaces which are visible to the user are referred to as significant, while spaces which are not rendered are considered insignificant. "
My Lemmy app, Thunder, shows all the spaces, sadly.
deleted by creator
It looks nicer on paper.
Looks like ass on a screen.
So you put a CR and a line space instead? Maybe I’ll start adding 3 spaces, to keep myself amused.
No, I just use one space. Fonts on screens look better with single spacing. Like this for example.
Double spacing looks weird. So much so that it is distracting. Look at this ridiculous spacing right here. Such large gaps.
Edit: example failed because the display changes it to single spacing. Maybe you haven’t noticed that your text doesn’t stay double spaced? Here’s a screenshot as a reference.
The CR and line space are what you did in the comment that I commented on. ;-) Spank ON!
Who legitimately cares about this?
I saw an analysis of the Cicada 3301 mystery which noticed a double space in the original final.jpg image to conclude it was probably written by an older and probably college educated American, as the practice is somewhat peculiar to Americans who took formal typing classes either in college before the 90’s or in high school after the 90’s.
This is something you probably want to care about when you’re producing text in some kind of professional capacity, for e.g. a newspaper, book, documentation, or something like that. You will need a manual of style to maintain consistency of the work across multiple authors. Using a single space is a universal rule in every typesetting/style manual I’ve ever seen, so it’s the correct choice in that case.
If you’re just out typing stuff in informal correspondence, as a hobby, or otherwise, I don’t really think you need to care.
Judging by the editorial standards I’ve seen from journalists recently (or lack thereof), I don’t think this is high on their list of concerns.
Editors and former editors. As the latter, I find it distracting and impossible not to notice.
Sounds like a “you” problem. I have no issue with it. IMO, wnatnig others to cofnorm to something becuz its a distraction to u speaks more about you’re shortcummings in adaptability and acceptance then it does aboot the author and there righting skillz. If too spaces after a period bothers you that much, I got some bad news bears about the younger generations…
Bud you can barely put a sentence together…
I just assumed it was forced enough that the /s wasn’t necessary…
You know, I thought this might be the case, but without the /s it’s a flip: is this person being very sarcastic, or are they very stupid?
There’s a lot of people who are very stupid, so that’s usually the assumption I revert to, when in doubt. I’m one that believes the /s is required for this reason.
In an age where headlines from The Onion are more believable than some actual headlines, omitting the /s was my bad.
