I need my space!

I need my space back!  I don't like this new spacing rule, it's claustrophobic.

No, I'm not talking about my husband, I like him.  It's this relatively recent rule about spacing between sentences.  Yes, it bothers me enough I felt the need to write a post about it.  (Notice, I'm using two spaces between sentences.)  Why did it have to change?  What was the real reason behind this space conspiracy?

I know that if I was back in middle or high school trying to write my essay the night before it's due, this new space rule would make me...upset, yes, let's go with upset.  It doesn't seem like that much of a difference, however if you are writing several pages and take out one space every line or two...yep, it makes more of a difference.  Some will argue that if you are writing quality stuff in the first place this space dilemma would not make that much of a difference.  Well, I don't write quality stuff...never have!  I'm one of those kids that wrote enough crap to get to the two or three page quota.

I actually typed in "one space or two after a period" into Google and it shot back 65,200,000 responses.  Seriously?  Evidently I am not the only one then.

According to the MLA style writing and a few other websites, the single space after a period was adopted in the beginning of the 20th century.  This was mainly because people used anywhere from one to four spaces after a period.  (Four spaces?  I could have written pure gold in high school with that much space!)  Then the poor typewriter comes along with it's spacing issues, so people started inserting two spaces after periods to show the end of a sentence clearly.  Now that we have better fonts and the poor typewriter is ancient, we are now expected to revert to the original one space after a period. Also, this "new spacing rule" changed around the time we started using computers regularly...in the 1970's. Considering I was born during the late 70's, why didn't I know this rule already? Evidently, my schools didn't get the memo.

My husband used to be a two spacer also. When he was in graduate school he wrote a LOT of papers. During this period, his thesis adviser convinced him that a single space was now the way to go. My husband was led astray by the prospect of better grades due to correct punctuation skills.

Once again, I am on the other side of quality writing, because my thumb just won't click once on that evil space bar. Now I am caught between what feels right and what is correct.  Most everything I type or text now is all sorts of screwed up on spacing. Even now, after every sentence I hit that space bar twice, then the backspace key.

Incidentally, the first few paragraphs were written with two spaces, while the last were written using only one, lonely space. To me there is no blatant difference between the two. If you are reading an email or something casual, the double space allows your eyes to skim easier. Unfortunately, I have to concede that the single space seems cleaner, professional almost. I guess if you are emailing a friend or another crap writer, the double space will work.  However, if you are writing a paper or wanting to be published, the single, lonely space is probably the way to go.

I should create a club called the 3 Tap Typers:  after a period, you tap the space bar twice, then tap the backspace once. I have a feeling this will be a long process with me, so you conformists need to be patient!