On Aug 4, 2006, at 8:20 AM, Mike Harris wrote:

> It would be nice if you could assume two spaces after a end of  
> sentence with puncuation.  Generally I think that's correct  
> grammar, although my grammar stinks so I could easily be wrong.  If  
> you have to get into parsing incorrect grammar it becomes much more  
> difficult.

Actually, that's an old typographical convention that we can't seem  
to shake.  Here's an report that talks a little about the issue:

   http://webword.com/reports/period.html

Here's an explanation from that report:

   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.

James Edward Gray II