I still find people who do this

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.
- Rizz predates Gen Apoc by quite a few centuries.
- I'd eat a bullet first
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:
- 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!
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.
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.
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.

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.
Hey. Stop breaking the pattern

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.
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. "
  https://blog.dwac.dev/posts/html-whitespace/#:~:text=Beyond%20single%20spaces%2C%20HTML%20is,same%20as%20having%20one%20space.
- My Lemmy app, Thunder, shows all the spaces, sadly.

If you fucking illiterate children are going to murder language with "u" and "ur", I'll put two spaces after the period, which is the right goddamn way to format anyway.

The double spaces is a holdout from the age of typewriters, where spaces were all the same size. Modern fonts (non-monospaced anyway) already have different spacing between words compared to the spacing after a period.
If “ur” and “u” don’t belong in normal communication, neither does two spaces after a period.
- Monospaced font is great though.
- False equivalency.
- Imagine being so deprived as to grow upwithour a typewriter.
- Putting two spaces after a period and using "u" and "ur" are not even on the same level. You can't say one is the same as the other, using a letter to replace a word is next level. A double space can almost be missed honestly.
Yep it looks and reads better than a single space.
You know, that actually doesn't bother me as much as some other things. Your never going to guess what truly bothers me more than the short hand of u and ur. At least with the u and ur they have taken everything out of it.You're example seems to... Okay I was going to do a you're and make it possessive in this sentence but my aneurysm can only last so long.

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.

And I'm going to keep doing it. Fight me.

What's the problem?

there isnt one
- Lol teh oldz

No thanks, I want to improve the readability of my work.

- Not like we’re still indenting every paragraph!
  Wait, we're not? I haven't been in school for a long time so...
This is the first time I'm hearing about double spaces. For me it seems that it would have the opposite effect.

What. A. Weird. Thing. To be annoyed. By.

It appears you've triggered the elderly

We've triggered the kids with spaces. SPACES
- Kids want all the spaces to be safe, except for the spaces spaces. Fuck those safe spaces spaces.

2 spaces? Bullshit, I put 1 tab.

Might wanna double it to be safe.

Two spaces after a period was the way typography was taught and graded through the late nineties and maybe later. On a keyboard my thumb automatically double taps the space bar after a period. No thought, just reflex. On a phone, I never type a period. My keyboard app automatically inserts a period after a double space.

I will not stop. And whining about it will make me double down.

4 spaces after a period?
- Double it!

If this is bugging you you deserve to be annoyed._ You're looking for reasons to be miserable._. You’re doing it to yourself. _ You give your power away to easily.

Too
I think your rite. OP shouldn't of let themself get so bothered.

no, i dont think i will.

Watch me write fuck you in cursive.

Understood. I will use three spaces from now on.

It was designed to stop typewriters from sticking. They taught the habit to me on a IBM computer. It is irrational, but so is life.

IIRC, this is the reason why we have the QWERTY layout as well.

I use two spaces and you are all "no cap fr fr skibidi Ohio fam."

Fuck off.

What does my Oxford Comma use say about me?

That you aren't uncultured swine. Or at least that you are considerate enough to put in the effort to make the task of reading your posts as painless as possible.
- Commas create clear communication, constructing consistent comprehension clarity, clearly.
I, too, use the Oxford comma
- And yet you didn't.

I'm over 40. I do what I want.

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

Imagine publically outing yourself as an agist POS with impulse control issues and an inability to rank issues worth talking about in any kind of sane manner.

Is this from that Oatmeal guy? He's always seemed very easily annoyed.

33 here and this is how I was taught

OP, this is a genuinely sent post on literally the first day of a new year. I want you to ask yourself something:

Does being bothered by this bring you any form of joy or happiness?

Does being bothered by this bring you any form of stress?

If the later is more true than the former, maybe you should think about that. You're taking time out of your day to be stressed about this thing and if isn't even paying you back in any meaningful way. It took you maybe 10min to make this post? Where would you be if that time was spent doing something you actually like doing instead of trying to bend the world on something so inconsequential as extra spaces?

I don't know if you'll take anything away from this, but of everyone stopped being hung up about things that didn't effect us, we'd all be better off.

Two spaces is very ingrained. Will probably never stop. Didn't even know the recommendation had changed until very recently. Why?

If you are double spacing when typing this comment, your autocorrect is cutting it down to one. This is one. This is two.
- And this is an excellent example of why my reaction to OP is:
- Yes, I'm on my phone, my phone does what it wants.

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...

It's about the typeface. Back in the day of manual or electric typewriters, we had monospace fonts, meaning that every character had the same width. A lowercase "i" got the same horizontal width as an uppercase "M".

Now we have word processors and proportional fonts, and the spacing after a period is built into the typeface.

One space after a period is correct, unless you are using Courier (or similar).

Exactly. If you're using a typewriter, go ahead and hit space twice. If you're using a computer with variable width fonts that does the typesetting for you, then don't.
Of every single comment in this thread, yours is the one actually addressing the most important factor that influenced this custom. This was imposed by schools who only had typewriters. Newspaper and publishing didn't even think about this because on printing plates they had kerning to worry about when setting each letter.
Same with the 1 and a half or double space between lines. Most people never consider to think that it was taught that way so teachers had space to write notes on your papers. Books and magazines don't need that much space and it actually looks ugly and makes reading harder. Outside of schools, typography is wildly more diverse and adaptable than the narrow habits taught to the amateur touchtypist.

Not 40, but I still do it. When learning to type on a computer in school it was a requirement. I don’t mind though because now when I do it, periods are automatically added for me in place of the first space.

Bingo. 44 yr old here. I blame Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing back in the early 90s. I still sometimes do the double space at work when I'm on a ~~typewriter~~ keyboard.

I had a guy review a document I wrote go through and "correct" all of my spaces by adding another one.

I live in the middle. I couldn't care less about either way.

After your first sentence here, I initially thought you were going to say "I leave one and a half spaces after a period." And I immediately started wondering "howwww???"
- There are special symbols in Windows for half spaces, I think it's Alt+2009.

My god, think of all those wasted bytes just storing extra spaces. /s

A space does take up a character

I do this in formal writing.

I'm under 30 and I do this when not on my janky phone keyboard. It just feels right lol

The more acronym/initialism oriented English gets, the more that double space makes sense.

I am under 40, but had "two spaces after a period," drilled into me as a kid. I only broke the habit in the last year, and it still feels weird every time I use just one.

Were you ever given a reason for being taught to use two spaces?
- Were you ever given a reason for not?

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?

Yeah, I’m old. When I was in high school, I was required to take a typing class before I could take a computer class. A computer class on the Apple ][e. (I said I was old!) On a typewriter, it was correct to add 2 spaces after a period, and that’s how I learned. I did it on the computer for a long time, but I eventually broke the habit. It wasn’t easy to break that muscle memory though!

I had the good fortune of attending a university that used the APA style guide, which gave me the opportunity to break free from the horrible MLA format that I learned in high school. So, no double space after a period for me, despite my advanced age.

Note: I understand that this is a typewriter thing, but while I had occasion to use a typewriter as a kid and teen, they were mostly no longer relevant already and I was never really taught anything directly related to typewriter typing. It is ridiculous that MLA stuck with that rule for so long (I don't know if they have dropped it since).

Two spaces on a modern phone automatically gives you a full stop. Checkmate, atheists

What is a two space habit? I've never seen this in my life. I'm in my late thirties. Is this that's done only in America again?

Back in the days of monospaced fonts, it was common practice to put two spaces after the period ending a sentence to make text more readable. It's not an issue now that fonts are dynamically spaced, making words appear more "natural" and sentences thus easier to parse, but when every character had the exact same width it was hard to determine the "flow" of a sentence since it wasn't easy to see where it ended. I remember being taught in kindergarten/first grade to use two spaces after a period, even though we weren't using monospaced fonts then (to the best of my recollection). That's why this is an "over 40" thing - it was taught to older generations to accommodate the technology at the time, but nobody ever went back to "unprogram" this from their minds.

While I'm definitely in the "single space" camp myself, and have previously been pretty annoyed by people who still use two spaces, I actually like how often I see the double spaces on Lemmy because it reminds me that there are quite a few people over 25 on here. I'm not quite 40, and I don't think I was ever taught anything other than single space, but I have friends that still do two spaces.

You can't do double spaces on Lemmy unless you're using some kind of app that doesn't automatically condense whitespace for some reason. In browser you can have any amount of spaces consecutively and they'll just get condensed into one.
Or people are deliberately using nonbreaking spaces specifically to make it not do that, for a gag. In which case, that's some real dedication just for a bit.
- Apparently the Thunder app doesn't automatically condense whitespace.

I’m sorry I’m over 40 and was never taught to do that crap.

You better be fucking sorry, you're 39 going forward soldier!
- 39 and under the hill. They call me not gray beard…

My 53 year old coworker does it even though it gets marked as an error in Word. I'm 40 and quit years ago when people figured out that fonts no longer require it for there to be obvious separation between sentences. I don't think it's really an age thing so much as it is a sign of adaptability, maybe?

You figured out it looks silly in comic sans?

Over 40. Never do this. The word processor has been doing it for me since WordPerfect 5

I was taught to do it this way in computer class 25 years ago. But I quit the habit sometime in the mid 2010s.

Just use Find/Replace.

Find (double space) Replace with (single space)

I stopped doing this before I turned 40. :P

I'm still a couple of years under 40. I only did this when I needed to extend the page count of a paper. However, my old man punctuation thing is that when I use commas before and after I, "quote," something on a sentence. Also, I don't care what Microsoft Word defaults are now, I write in Times New Roman.

Our typing software had it that way in 2000, so if you wanted to pass, you would have had to type 2 spaces after a period. Originally I think it is was about fonts not being so easy to seperate text apart so it would be easier to notice a thought being started/ended when skimming

My 33 year old husband does this. He went to an extremely rural school and they taught him to do this in computer class in high school. Drives me insane and it took me years to convince him it's not correct any more. He works in an industry where most people are older so I guess nobody really notices or cares.

I never did that, even on a typewriter. Word processors do a decent enough job of spacing and it’d just look weird online.

There's a user at work who puts quadruple ellipses after each sentence he types. It's just like he holds down . for a few seconds. I hate it.

Gads... I hate when people do that... Like ... .what even is punctuation??? I'll never know.......
Ah, yes. Not a full stop, the full-complete-total-entire-unequivocal stop.
that's so passive aggressive
- I guess it is. Guy is a dick and dumb as a brick lol

I stopped that a long time ago and don't care who continues doing so. However I know that I'm dealing with a person who may be starting to sundown when I get emails written like that.

I get annoyed by trailing spaces for no reason.Trailing paragraphs before a page break are cursed, though.

And then you go ahead and don't use a space after a period. Hmmmm

Also a lot of people who put a space before punctuation, as in "really ?", which I've been told may be a tell that the writer is french or studied french.

(A lack of capitalization for country/demonym-ish nouns and adjectives may be a tell that the writer is norwegian—we just capitalize the proper country name, the rest comes off as random capitalization we'll often get wrong, with or without autocorrect.)

Why not just increase the size of a single space? Having two spaces is just extra work for no reason.

Edit: I decided to look up the original image and found this
https://www.cultofpedagogy.com/two-spaces-after-period/

That's basically what computers do.
The rule is a holdover from monospaced type like from a typewriter. On a computer with a decent font and renderer it will generally make the spacing a little larger than an in-between-words space, but not a ton like double spacing would. Basically typesetting is way more complicated than people realize but since we solved most of the problems computers have with it in like, the 70s, most people don't tend to realize it unless they have design training.
The follow up post is significantly more interesting to me, as it basically mirrors the comment section.
https://www.cultofpedagogy.com/price-of-snark/
- That's what I was saying. For people who are stuck to the holdover, it's just not useful to literally hit space twice if the goal is merely to increase the distance between the end of a sentence and the start of the next when the computer can do that for you.
  It's literally the same argument between tabs vs spaces in code. The argument boils down to personal preference and taste of the amount of space. However, there is one truly valid argument that makes one more logical over the other: pressing a key multiple times to enter multiple characters to achieve a desired amount of space, instead of one key press and one character, is objectively bad.
  If you simply prefer the stylistic difference, then you can change your settings to accommodate that. If you just don't want to do that, then do whatever you want. It's your prerogative to be lazy or whatever, and that's fine. Just like I don't care to add extra space after the end of a sentence because it doesn't bother me to have less.
  However, anyone who teaches, preaches, or requires specifically adding extra key presses and extra characters is just plain wrong, because it's a stylistic preference. You can say that it's your preference to have more space, and you can say you don't care to change your settings so you don't have to press the key multiple times, but it is absolutely not objectively better in any way.

Double-spaced refers to line spacing to leave room for notes. I don't think period-spacing exists. It seems like people correcting a behavior incorrectly so prevalently that now it's just something some people do, which is humorous.

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 was taught to do that in word processing class in 1995 😭 I was only following orders!

Sometimes autocorrect does that too

It's a major pet peeve of mine to see two spaces after a period.

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.

Holy shit the traffic on this post is crazy