I learned 2 finger-widths after a period in kindergarten. I didn't unlearn it

Apr 12, 2020
6:02:05pm

Pedant All-American

until college.

I think it changed shortly after I was in kindergarten (~1990 1991) with computers becoming ubiquitous, but no one bothered to update students on the change.

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Pedant

Previous username: BertoChavez
New username: SalmonOfCapistrano
Bio page: Pedant
Joined: Feb 1, 2012
Last login: Jul 31, 2021
Total posts: 0 (0 FO)

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Messages

Author

Time

Someone reports Microsoft Word will recognize 2 spaces after period as an error

Martin Van Nostrand

4/12/20 5:48pm

That's terrible. When did they decide to change the standard to one space?

RealComfortableJeans

4/12/20 5:56pm

A long time ago.

TCuz

4/12/20 5:57pm

That's not helpful. They were still teaching two spaces as recently as 20 years

RealComfortableJeans

4/12/20 6:02pm

No they weren’t. You were just taught wrong.

TCuz

4/12/20 6:02pm

California public schools, so it's possible. At any rate, do you have anything

RealComfortableJeans

4/12/20 6:04pm

That's not true at all. It depends on the style guide used. The political

Hypnotoad

4/12/20 6:05pm

I don’t think they teach 8 year old keyboard classes in political science departments

TCuz

4/12/20 6:07pm

I can tell you that style was part of the grade and we received lower grades if

Hypnotoad

4/12/20 6:10pm

I’m not questioning that at all.

TCuz

4/12/20 6:13pm

Why the snide remarks?

BYU'01

4/12/20 6:49pm

I’m not saying they aren’t and it wasn’t meant to be a snide comment.

TCuz

4/12/20 6:58pm

Are 8 year olds the only school students?

mobius

4/12/20 7:16pm

20 years ago for me = high school business communications class.

RealComfortableJeans

4/12/20 9:13pm

I learned 2 finger-widths after a period in kindergarten. I didn't unlearn it

Pedant

4/12/20 6:02pm

After Type writers were no longer needed

ExitStageLeft

4/12/20 6:11pm

I learned it in kindergarten in 2000-ish and then was told by my first grade

LilToney

4/12/20 7:03pm

False doctrine. Word processors automatically put in more space. You have never

zonacougar

4/12/20 7:45pm

Is it not possible to select the styleguide you use and have it

Hypnotoad

4/12/20 6:05pm

Whenever I review docs for my director I have to do a find and replace to remove

Salami Karate

4/12/20 6:05pm

According to this thread "old people" includes people in their 30s and 40s.

RealComfortableJeans

4/12/20 6:08pm

Grew up with two spaces. Switched to one space 10 years ago. Two spaces looks

WDaddy

4/12/20 6:59pm

RE: Someone reports Microsoft Word will recognize 2 spaces after period as an

Setpoint

4/12/20 6:11pm

Yes please!

ebv

4/12/20 6:14pm

The one vs two space after a period question is far from settled.

RealComfortableJeans

4/12/20 6:19pm

Yup. Lots of old people still alive and in charge of standards.

TCuz

4/12/20 6:24pm

APA 7th is officially one space. Thats all that matters to me

Backcountry

4/12/20 6:25pm

Shallow definitions/rules cited in this thread

ColoSpgs

4/12/20 6:29pm

Right. That's why I was asking if it is possible to tell Word what style guide

Hypnotoad

4/12/20 6:33pm

Shame. Two spaces is correct so that things are easier to read. Should we do

Misteak

4/12/20 7:03pm

I grew up a two spacer. When one space became more common, I switched cuz it

WDaddy

4/12/20 7:13pm

And this is why kids don’t pause at the end of a sentence when reading.

Misteak

4/13/20 12:59am

So we can have thousands of fonts available, but no room for a two-space

Misteak

4/12/20 7:06pm

Never change man. Something tells me that I don't have to worry.

Cheesy Gordita

4/12/20 7:19pm

You are probably willing to go along with the ‘decision’ to downgrade Pluto

Misteak

4/12/20 7:44pm

Yeah, and they won’t even publish textbooks with pics of Obama in lizard form!

CommodoreCoug

4/12/20 8:00pm

RE: Yeah, and they won’t even publish textbooks with pics of Obama in

Misteak

4/12/20 8:06pm

Found the comic sans guy.

shimmy

4/12/20 7:21pm

You can still do two spaces, just like you can still send your document full of

zonacougar

4/12/20 7:47pm

Revisionist history. Go ahead and Google ‘Find and Replace’. That tip is on me

Misteak

4/12/20 7:58pm

I can't tell you how tired I get of removing spaces from documents written by

zonacougar

4/12/20 7:38pm

^^^ Doesn’t know about Find and Replace ^^^

Misteak

4/12/20 7:59pm

Oh, I'm intimately aware. Sadly used much too often.

zonacougar

4/12/20 11:19pm

Correcting unimportant non-errors.

Misteak

4/13/20 12:37am

All of you that care about this:

fattycoug

4/12/20 9:27pm

They can have my two spaces after a period right after they peel my

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