One lump or two?
Yeah, right. I’m not talking about sugar in coffee.
I am talking about how many spaces should follow a period at the end of a sentence.
There appears to be this great big misconception that it’s two spaces after a period.
It used to be two spaces.
It changed.
If you refer to the newer style guides, they all unanimously state one space after a period.
The 2000 and 2008 editions of the GPO Style Manual are unequivocal:
“A single justified word space will be used between sentences. This applies to all types of composition.” (Paragraph 2.49)
In chapter 6 Punctuation section 3 Typographic and Aesthetic Considerations, the Chicago Manual of Style states:
6.11 Space between sentences In typeset matter, one space, not two (in other words, a regular word space), follows any mark of punctuation that ends a sentence, whether a period, a colon, a question mark, an exclamation point, or closing quotation marks.
So there you have it.
ONE space. Not two.
The reason there used to be two spaces was because typewriters used a monospace font, and people thought it was easier to read if there were two spaces after a period at the end of a sentence.
Today things are a little different. While we still submit in monospace fonts (Courier / Courier New), the poor, hardworking copy editors absolutely loathe the practice of two spaces. They have to take them all out again before sending the manuscript to press.
Now, even if you do a seek-and-destroy… err… find and replace, things get a bit messy. Not because the formatting is being messed up, but these poor people (and you, the author) tend to use track changes.
Turn on track changes.
Go into your manuscript and do a find and replace on all the double spaces.
Choose “Show Revisions in Balloons”.
Welcome to Hell.
Do your copyeditor a favor — use one space only.
