Discussion Groups / English Usage / November 2011

Studies have been done, and perhaps unsurprisingly, were inconclusive.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sentence_spacing#Studies

I didn't see a reference there to any studies with 3/2 or 4/3 (the
default in TeX) of an interword space between sentences, which is what
really needs to be tested.  They just used double and triple.

Yes, it's been standard for some decades to use exactly 1:1, although
it seems to be based more on type designers' taste and fashion, and
maybe on saving paper and saving themselves work, than on any optimum
of legibility.

Or vice-versa.  There's certainly no empirical support for the sort of
"Never EVER use two spaces" commandment that Brett quoted in the OP.

I generally don't notice sentence spacing.  When I do, it's when the
space after an abbreviation jars me because it looks like the space
after a sentence.  In this case the supposedly optimal interword-
intersentence space after a period is too big between words.  An
excellent example is

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MissingNo.

--
Jerry Friedman

You  may  call this an ad hominem, but I didn't like
the way the article in the original post is written.

When the author says that

   Every  major  style  guide -- including  the
   Modern Language Association Style Manual and
   the Chicago Manual of Style -- prescribes  a
   single space after a period.

even  providing  the  corresponding links, he is not
being sincere.  According to one of the  links,  the
MLA is in fact quite neutral:

   Because it is increasingly common for papers
   and manuscripts to be prepared with a single
   space  after  all  punctuation  marks,  this
   spacing is shown in the examples in the  MLA
   Handbook  and  the  MLA  Style  Manual. As a
   practical matter, however, there is  nothing
   wrong with using two spaces after concluding
   punctuation marks unless  an  instructor  or
   editor requests that you do otherwise.

Furthermore, they give no rational arguments and ex-
plain their viewpoint by the  need  to  reflect  the
common usage!

The other reference, to the Chicago Manual of Style,
is actually to a Q&A section at their site, in which
the  very  style  of  the reply emphasizes its being
just a personal opinion and not the official  recom-
mendation of CMOS:

   The  view  at  [Anton -- sic!)  CMOS is that
   there is no reason for two  spaces  after  a
   period in published work.
   [...]
   So,  in our efficient, modern world, I think
   there is no room for two spaces after a  pe-
   riod.   In  the  opinion  of this particular
   copyeditor, this is a good thing.

Neither can this mild tone be said to be  "prescrib-
ing".

Most of the arguments listed in CMOS's Q&A (and cor-
responsing with those of other  single-spacers)  ap-
peal  to  technical  difficulties like problems with
software and the inefficiency of the typist's  work,
but these must never be taken into account because a
book is typset once, but read millions of times; and
the only acceptable argument is the lack of evidence
as to which way is better.

As Wikipedia says here:

   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sentence_spacing

the real CMOS used increased sentence spacing as re-
cently  as in 1969, but had switched to single spac-
ing by 2003 (and I wonder want went on in between).

An assumption seems to prevail that the only  alter-
native  to  single  spacing  is literally to use two
spaces (by pressing the spacebar  twice),  while  in
modern  proportional  typesetting the sentence space
can automatically be made, say, 1.4 times the inter-
word  space, using software's end-of-sentence detec-
tion  algorithms  (not  necessarily  the   same   as
Emacs's).

Another argument is "distracting gaps" caused by in-
creased sentence spacing.  But those gaps  are  only
noticeable  when looking at a printed page, its text
and its letters from an aesthetical point  of  view,
while when reading this negative effect disappears.

The only interesting reference in the original arti-
cle is this one:

   http://www.creativepro.com/article/double-space-or-not-double-space

but again, its authour is not an active proponent of
single spacing.

Sproz:

Some  of  them  don't  care, some can't make it with
their software, some excuse themselves by  referring
to  the above arguments and some have a sincere (and
I don't say wrong) conviction that single spacing is
better.

Our world is certainly an imperfect one.  I can only
ask  about your own opinion from comparing your edi-
tion of K&R and any other book.

Anton

P.S.: I can't agree with  the  view  that  monospace
     fonts  look  ugly.   I  was  a  big fan of the
     VTBulletin typewriter-style font  and  typeset
     in  it  not  only  my cumbersome assembly pro-
     gramms at the university:

         http://img840.imageshack.us/img840/5971/vtbulletin.png

     but also complete English texts.

Yes, I mean the Function keys, which in all decent keyboards used to be on the
left.

But the standard 84-key keyboard for MS-DOS computers had software written to
make use of its capabilities, and when editing it was dead easy to define (now
called select) text by line (F4), word (alt-F4), sentence (ctrl F4) or
paragraph (shift F4), just by moving your fingers, and not by moving your
whole hand.

And one could delete text by using F5 in the same way. Hold the Alt key down,
press F5 three times to delete "in respect of" and replace it with "for". Now
you have to jiggle around with the mouse, which takes much longer.

It's been bugging me for a while that my laptop keyboard doesn't have
a separate num pad (you can turn part of the keyboard into a num pad,
but you lose a bunch of other things while it's switched that way).

So I've been trying out a Hama 2in1 USB mouse and num pad (the latter
is covered by a hinged lid that you can flip up --- you can even use
the mouse with the lid up, although it's a little easier to hit the
num keys by accident).  Unfortunately it interferes with the num lock
function on the main keyboard, and I haven't figured out how to get
them to work separately.