What am I talking about? Putting two spaces between sentences. That is what I was told I had to do when I was a child. But I came across this Slate article saying that you shouldn't do it, and in fact you're a douchelord if you do do it.
That is a habit that is very, very hard for me to break. Putting two spaces is something I was told to do the first time I was in typing class in elementary school. I don't know why; I don't think I ever questioned it. But when the secretary lady/teacher started drilling us on typing, that is what we were told: Two spaces inbetween sentences, always.
Of course, that was a long time ago. I learned to type on a computer, albeit a very old one, but we still had a typewriter at home. And I did papers on that typewriter till, oh, early in high school. According to the article, the extra space helped readers recognize sentences. But in this day and age, where computers are much more flexible and can accommodate all the different fonts used so it ensure the right amount of space inbetween sentences, that extra space is not needed and, in fact, hurts readability.
I think I complained before about needing to edit blog posts that I've already posted and seeing that there was only one space after a sentence when I put in two, and then adding a space after every single sentence. Maybe this new standard is the reason for the disappearing spaces. That's good enough of a reason to no longer do that, which frees up a lot of time and relieves me of a lot of frustration.
But can I start typing with only one space inbetween sentences? I don't think so. I'm an old dog that can't learn new tricks. Hopefully this antiquated formatting quirk won't prevent me from getting freelancing gigs. If I do get some and my editor or boss tells me to stop doing that, I will. Until then. ...
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