A Space Case

I am SO ashamed.  I'm annoyed at myself.  And I'm absolutely embarrassed.

I found out today, thanks to a Slate article posted by a friend on Facebook, that I am guilty of committing a terrible crime.  It’s positively heinous, apparently.  Reprehensible.  And not only that, I’ve been doing it for as far back as I can remember! 

Hi, my name is Peri, and I’m a double-spacer. 

I admit it: I add two spaces after the period at the end of a sentence.

Of course, I did not invent this convention on my own, it was taught to me in junior high school typing class (you know, back in the dark ages of things known as typewriters), and I have been doing it ever since.  Unrepentantly.  And without knowing I was committing such a felonious assault on the aesthetic senses of graphic designers worldwide -- although I’m informed that ignorance of my crime is no excuse.

Back "in the day" when we were learning to type on typewriters, they featured monospace type, in which each character took up an equal amount of space no matter how wide the letter was.  Double spacing made it easier to mark the separation between sentences.  Today, unless you choose a monospace font such as Courier on your computer, you are probably using a proportional font, and double spacing is no longer necessary.  In fact, most designers agree that two spaces makes it more difficult on the eyes, although I don't think that's ever been proven.  

Clearly, I never got that particular memo.

Further compounding this typographical transgression, not only have I shown no remorse, I have tried to indoctrinate my children in this cult of commodious composition: “correcting” their papers when they have done nothing more than toe the linotype line and maintain the type-setting status quo, smugly single-spacing away.

It is hard for me, as an inveterate double-spacer, to accept that the most commonly accepted style guides of our day, the Modern Language Association, Associated Press and American Psychological Association handbooks, all recommend single spacing.  But indeed they do.  We are talking of a *lifetime* of practice here, only to find out I have been doing this wrong all along!  It is ONE space after a period … period!

Can I break myself of this terrible habit?  (And is this the only error I have been making?  We DO still capitalize words at the beginning of sentences, right?  Subjects and verbs are still to agree, no?  Yes!)

And so begins my quest to cure myself of this nasty little peccadillo. Oh look, I just typed only one space between these two sentences!  I’m on my way!

I’ll get there, I’m sure; it’s just going to take some time. 

And I may need a little, um ... space.