Breaking a Spacing Habit

@OneOfMany omg, I don't think I will be able to break this habit. LOL

@ElusiveButterfly I have it naturally ingrained in my typing styles that I don't even think about a double space. In fact entering one space feels kind of wrong.

I guess the double space was for typewriters when the words were so close together, and now it's not needed with the different font sizes. In books and magazines where space is tight, and they want manualscripts to be 1 space so there's less of it... or something? I was editing a document for another person and it was all single space, so I looked up if that's the way it is or not. I guess so!

I only have to consider it because I'm trying to publish. I don't want to upset readers who notice the double-space. :P

@OKennedy When it's not important I just write as well. But if I want to publish on the next stage I get to worry about more than just preference. It's okay, it's better knowing ahead of time.

@OneOfMany I guess it is a matter of preference. I mostly focus on the words more than I do on the grammar.

@OneOfMany, well that would explain it for me since I'm over the age of 40. I would be one of the clueless, nothing new there.

@beaniefanatic13 It doesn't explain for me since I was still taking university classes 5 years ago and I don't remember if they had an issue with spacing or not!

I was reading one article and it said something about people being over 40 using the double space rule. I thought that was rude since I'm still 33 and it was taught. Some people are pretty uptight about these grammar shifts the rest of us have no idea what is happening! I can't believe how many times a year it shifts around. I have a feeling they are insecure about something because they change rules back and forth a few times before finally picking something. It's kind of like the government and laws. One day you are doing something and the next you are committing a crime because they changed the law on you and expect you to magically know.

@OneOfMany I think its Journal of Immunology or something like this, where they are really annal about punctuations

@Drosophila I guess that shows that not everyone likes 'universal' rules!

Haha, then that's interesting. As I said to someone else tonight, Chicago can't even run their own city, why do they get to make grammar rules for others?

@OneOfMany it was deff a habit, one that I thought I still did, I have a feeling that habit was broken when I worked at the paper, being I'd have to go correct them all

@Jessicalynnt It's funny because for work I single space and for casual I double space. Only because for work every space is crucial because it's a magazine.

I'm having trouble converting because it feels good too! My poor thumb has less work now that it only gets to space once.

I still like the double space, but I will get used to not using it too. For now I know I can do Find Replace for my documents that need to be updated.

@pgntwo Fortunately I read that you can easily use the Find Replace function and replace the doubles with singles. It works well. My one document I just converted had 484, so that would have taken a while to adjust.

@OneOfMany The dot-space-space still comes as a habit when I am using the big keyboard on my desktop pc, even at the end of a line or para.

@OneOfMany I agree. It is a step by step process. Something that we cannot learn in a snap of a finger. Thus, one must be dedicated and focused in order to have a good output.

@annierose I didn't put much effort into it, it just developed over time from repetition of use. :)

Expressing oneself is the normal trouble. If we could all do it easily then we would be proficient writers and there would be no need to train!

@OneOfMany I´d report the post. We don´t need those people here.

I was reading their article and I couldn't make it a quarter of the way through. They were calling people that use two spaces idiots and harsher names. I wasn't sure what all the excitiment was all about!

@marguicha It wasn't here or I would. It was on the broader jungle of the internet!

It's not vital for communication or a scientific breakthrough (like knowing the world is round and not flat) that affects everyday life. It's just another one of those changes people like to add in.

Well we hate to think of being taught at the beginning and then having people later say that it is wrong. After all, the rules for typing were made for 2 at the beginning so it could be read. Is it wrong when people change the font and expect the rules to change as well?

For most people 1 or 2 doesn't really matter. It only matters in published works, graded projects and scientific journals, etc. If you are writing stories for yourself and publishing posts here, it doesn't make any difference at all. If you put 3 spaces in, I think people would start to notice!

@OneOfMany yeah, 3 is a little too many!

@euphie People would probably get confused about what they were reading.

Well in casual actual words and punctuation are already so appreciated that a space or two goes unnoticed! I have an ex that would write all in one continuous sentence... It drives me crazy even thinking about it.

Well it's not like anyone announces these things. It seems they just expect us to look up the rules all the time. It seems these days everyone is taught to only use one space. Two spaces was a thing because of typewriters, but it carried over to computer usage, and after a while they decided it was a waste of space.

Sounds like you adapted naturally. Or texting helped change people.

@polyxena Odd since my high school and even my college never seemed to care about it. I guess they were more interested in seeing if the material was right over space concerns.

@OneOfMany I don't text, or I should say hardly text. I never caught on to all this new wave stuff, I think they may have stated something about it when I was in high school almost 15 years ago about only using one space instead.