Don’t Hit Your Space Bar Twice

For the writers among us, let’s heed this warning. At Slate, Farhad Manjoo chastises all of us who use two spaces between sentences in our typing.

Can I let you in on a secret? Typing two spaces after a period is totally, completely, utterly, and inarguably wrong.

…

Most ordinary people would know the one-space rule, too, if it weren’t for a quirk of history. In the middle of the last century, a now-outmoded technology—the manual typewriter—invaded the American workplace. To accommodate that machine’s shortcomings, everyone began to type wrong. And even though we no longer use typewriters, we all still type like we do.

I admit that this is what I was taught, and it’s what I practiced until very recently. My book editors have required a single space after sentences, but my academic writing — including my dissertation, completed last year — still called for two spaces.

So, I’m a convert to the one-space rule. Are you?