Sentence Spacing — 1 Space or 2?

An anonymous reader noted an epic battle is waging, the likes of which has not been seen since we all agreed that tab indenting for code was properly two spaces. He writes "Do you hit the space bar two times between sentences, or only one? I admit, I'm from the typewriter age that hits it twice, but the article has pretty much convinced me to change. My final concern: how will my word processor know the difference between an abbr. and the end of a sentence (so it can stretch the sentence for me)? I don't use a capital letter for certain technical words (even when they start a sentence), making it both harder to programmatically detect a new sentence and more important to do so. What does the Slashdot community think?"

Comments

False assumption

[tedgyz]

we all agreed that tab indenting for code was properly two spaces

Say what?!?? Who made that decision? In the java world, 4 spaces is pretty standard.

Re:False assumption

[Cryolithic]

The linux Kernel is (was?) 8 spaces. The idea between 8 space tabs is that if your code is indented so far as to be a pain to read, then you should probably look into why it's so nested.

Re:False assumption

[Civil_Disobedient]

So, in our efficient, modern world, I think there is no room for two spaces after a period. In the opinion of this particular copyeditor, this is a good thing.

Efficiency has nothing to do with it. In fact, efficiency is a complete red-herring, since presumably in our efficient, modern world we could simply write software to be intelligent enough to automatically add a space between sentences when it detects a period-space-word starting with a capital letter.

The reason you add two spaces is because the additional space aids your eyes in determining individual sentences. If you only use a single space to delineate words and sentences, all paragraphs merge into a jumble. Two spaces gives the eyes an additional visual cue, and thus is far easier to parse.

and it's from quite a credible source

An appeal to authority is less argumentatively valid than an appeal to reason. The Chicago Manual of Style gives no reason except some hand-waiving about our "efficient, modern world," which is a huge, steaming pile of bunkum.

Re:False assumption

[afabbro]

Kernel is 1 tab, which is always 8 spaces. This is completely different from 8 space indent.

Thank you. People who indent with spaces should be shot. Indent with tabs all you want and I can view it the way I want (2 space, 4 space, etc.).

If you use spaces instead of tabs, I'm going to have to take two seconds to run some elisp to fix it ;-)

Re:False assumption

[Traa]

People who indent with spaces should be shot. Indent with tabs all you want and I can view it the way I want (2 space, 4 space, etc.). If you use spaces instead of tabs, I'm going to have to take two seconds to run some elisp to fix it ;-)

People who indent with tabs should be shot. Indent with spaces all you want and I can view it the way IT WAS WRITTEN.

There, fixed that for you.

Really, using tabs only works in theory. You need to be pretty anal to never ever layout anything using spaces or the tabs argument breaks down. God forbid I line up some stuff to make it more readable.

Yeah, yeah...this is religion to some. My argument is as moot as yours. Kinda what I'm pointing out.

"tab indenting for code was properly two spaces"

[glwtta]

Well fuck you too, then.

Not just problem for automatic parsers

[CannonballHead]

It's easier for a human to determine sentence structure when sentences are set apart by two spaces, too.

Word processor?

[TheRaven64]

If your word processor is using the whitespace that you enter, rather than typesetting your text according to whatever your style rules define, you need to get a new word processor. I tend to use two spaces at the end of a sentence, because I tend to edit text in monospace and it gives me a clear visual break between sentences, but that doesn't mean that I expect two spaces in the typeset output - even a web browser is more intelligent than that. Generally I find around 1.2-1.4 gives maximum readability. You want a slightly larger gap between sentences than between words, but double the width of a normal space gives too large a gap for easy reading. Of course, the width of a single space varies slightly from line to line when typesetting justified text.

Use LaTeX.

[R.Mo_Robert]

Use LaTeX (especially if you're typing technical things), then you won't have to worry about it. Type what you mean, and let the typesetter and styles handle the details.

(I should note that if have a period followed by space that isn't a new sentence or a or a period following a capital letter that is, in which case you'll need to mark up the period with \ or @ to let it know, but these are generally fringe cases.)

Depends on format

[Geisel]

Myself, I'm a two-space typer. My finger know a sentence-ending period is followed by two spaces and they just do it. However, in certain formats, such as HTML, white space is ignored anyway and then formatted by the format-processor (obviously a web browser in the case of HTML).

While I'm a two-spacer, the medium in which we type is largely making this a moot point.

-geis

TAB is the one true indentation

[ejtttje]

This diverging discussion is the perfect example of why it is clear the ideal code indentation is a TAB. Set your editor to display whatever indentation width you like, don't expect to inflict that choice on everyone else. Plus it eliminates the possibility of sloppy partial indentations, and it's fewer keystrokes to boot. Win, win, win.

Re:What does slashdot say?

[Hatta]

Two spaces makes it easier to parse with a regexp. Any period followed by two spaces is the end of a sentence. If you use one space, you might pick up sentence fragments with titles (Mr. Mrs., etc.)

Of course, the question is really moot. LaTeX ignores whitespace and just does what it thinks is right. I am willing to trust LaTeX.

Re:One space

[Rob the Bold]

I've been an editor (copy editor, proofreader, senior editor, etc.) for 10 years now. One space.

Why stop there? Really. Is even one space really needed? Doesn't a period, question mark or exclamation point denote the end of a sentence. Why go all redundant and put a space in at all . . .

Oops, I guess an ellipsis can end a sentence too.

I'm not being snarky here. But I am thinking that the answer to the question "Why not zero spaces?" would be "Because that would make it harder to read".

Re:Monospaced or proportional

[SleazyRidr]

Probably because html strips out the second space, and slashcode won't recognize &nbsp.