On Aug 4, 2006, at 9:45 AM, Hans Fugal wrote:

> James Edward Gray II wrote:
>> 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.
>
> Very interesting. It's also very interesting to me that I spend  
> most of my time reading and writing in monospaced fonts and I think  
> two spaces looks worse in monospace, so I only ever use one.

The report mentions this as well:

   In short, the "rivers" of whitespace, caused by using two spaces,
   invariably annoy graphic designers and typographers.

James Edward Gray II