After attending a 4-hour grammar class--yes, I know, I am a geek
--I was heartened to witness that there are those still out
there who are positively impassioned about punctuation. The
class erupted in a thirty-minute discussion on--get this--how
many spaces should follow a period. You would have thought we
were talking about which soda as better: Pepsi or Coke. No fewer
than thirty-five people weighed in on the matter. These were
their thoughts: - If you are typing on a typewriter (and,
really, who does this?), it is two spaces. - If you are
tweeting, it is one space--if you have even written a complete
sentence, that is. - If it is a legal document, it is two
spaces. - If it is a mobile device, most phones automatically
make it a period followed by one space, if you enter two spaces.
- If it is web copy, it is one space. Finally, after nearly
coming to fisticuffs, the consensus was to use one space after a
period. Geez. You woulda thought it was the Grammargeddon.