undefined | Better HN

0 pointsdahart2y ago0 comments

Googling the question right now, there are two recent developments I was unaware of. There’s a 2018 paper [1] about it showing no perceptual benefit to either spacing, and also in 2020 MS Word changed their spelling checker to consider 2 spaces an error [2]. This second article tells the opposite story from what I thought I’d heard (but maybe this is what I was thinking of) - it says 2 spaces were developed for monospaced typewriters, and not for print.

[1] https://link.springer.com/article/10.3758/s13414-018-1527-6

[2] https://www.grammarly.com/blog/spaces-after-period/

0 comments

3 comments · 2 top-level

mcpackieh2y ago· 1 in thread

The way I see it, if some typesetting system thinks one space looks better than two and renders two as one anyway, or if the difference is otherwise imperceptible, then there's still no reason for me to stop using two. It's pure muscle memory and if people can't tell the difference then I'm not going to stop.

dahartOP2y ago

Sounds good to me. I wonder if your comment was intended to respond to the sibling comment to mine? Anyway, I’d agree there’s no reason to stop, and anyway 2 spaces has been the rule and still is for some people. Language and technology being fluid is why there’s debate and why the number of spaces has changed over time, and it’s also why it’s okay to do it the way you want to.

pseudalopex2y ago

Your summary of the 2018 paper was incorrect. They found it made no difference to people who typed 1 space. People who typed 2 spaces read 2 spaced text 3% faster with equal comprehension. And the limitations were significant. The subjects were young and had normal or corrected to normal vision. The task was reading paragraphs in order. And I did not see periods inside sentences mentioned.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse