One Space or Two
[Originally posted on ttlaxia.net [2012-09-28 Fri] There seems to be an eternal debate among writers (and those who hate them) about the relative merits of inserting one space or two between sentences. (See, Mark Barrett's blog post for an interesting and unusually even-keeled example.) The question itself is misleading in every sense, but to the extent that it is a meaningful one, the answer will come by asking what, exactly, is at stake in the issue. There are several possibilities, including the sanity of publishing editors, the tired fingers of authors, the beauty of documents, or the ease with which we use those documents. The future of Western Civilization may not be at stake in the sense that if we today omit to insert an extra space after our full stops, we shall surely be shoveling babies into ovens tomorrow; but somebody thinks something is at stake—else why all the vitriol? In the realm of computer programs, the desiderata for an editor of text are, as the programme
