Note from Audra: I had a disagreement with my 7th grader about this a few months ago when helping him proof a paper. So…when I ran across the blog post I thought I would DIE laughing. I thought some of you may enjoy this…
Begin Cult of Pedagogy Blog Post:
(Before I start, I should mention that I am over 40, so I can make fun of the over 40. So there.)
I learned to type in 1987 on an IBM Selectric typewriter. A typewriter, not a computer. We had those, but they had big, actually floppy disks and honest to God, no one had any idea what to do with them. My semester of typing remains one of the most valuable classes I ever took in high school — I can still dazzle small children with my ability to make words appear on a screen by just spazzing my fingers out on the keyboard.
But one rule from typing class has definitely expired, and if you’re over 40, it’s possible that no one has given you the message. Here it is:
Unless you are typing on an actual typewriter, you no longer have to put two spaces after a period.
Or a question mark. Or an exclamation point. The rule applies to all end punctuation. Just one space. Really.
Yes, really.
Here’s why: Back when we used typewriters, every character was given the exact same amount of space on the page. That meant the letter i was given the same amount of space as the letter m, even though it clearly didn’t need it. This is called monospaced typesetting and it’s, well, spacey. We needed that extra space between sentences to make it easier to see the beginning of new sentences.
