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One Versus Two Spaces After a Period
Like Amy Gahran, Kathy Gill told me that the current typographic standard for a single space after the period is a reflection of the power of proportionally spaced fonts.
"The only reason that two spaces were used after a period during the 'typewriter' age was because original typewriters had monospaced fonts -- the extra space was needed for the eye to pick up on the beginning of a new sentence. That need is negated w/proportional space type, hence [it is] the typographic standard."
While I'm on the topic, here's what one of the folks at The Design & Publishing Center had to say about the history of typographic spacing:
"In the days of typewriter manuscripts the extra space was necessary to separate the ends and beginnings of sentences. The space character never changed. With the advent of electronic typesetting, the software attempts to 'fit' the type to specific line lengths, it both expands or contracts the available space to make the type fit. Word spacing is where most of this space 'play' takes place."
This same writer went on to tell me that the use of two spaces is visually distracting, and can be a typographic design danger:
"With two spaces, there is 'more' space to play with, and if space is added (which is most often the case) the results are white spots, and in some cases "rivers" of blank spots in the body of text. This makes the body both unattractive as a visual element, and distracting to read."
