I had this thought about why we enter two spaces after a period and a question mark over a year ago. I thought it was a novel and snazzy idea, yeah was I wrong. Get rid of the extra space, and there would be less typing, less use of space saved on hard drives, use space bars, and maybe a couple of less trees might be knocked down. I had a ulterior motive, I was getting so old that even though I had Lazik Eye repair I still could not tell if I had typed two spaces after a period when I did so on the computer screen.
Turns out this idea has been discussed, prodded, and poked for a long time. Anyway, I thought since today is Earth day I ought to bring it up again as some kind tribute that I am making an effort to reduce my foot print on Earth. I have already done some really small things I no longer flick my cigarette buts out the window of my car to wherever they fall. I pickup my dogs poop on a regular basis using those grocery bags. Oh, guess I cannot count this one because the bags are bad, because they clog up the Bays, Canals, and River Inlets I don't know what I am going to use when they are gone. I guess my foot print is still as big as my size 13's.
Maybe I can make an impact on my print with this period thing Turns out that when early civilizations start writing they did not use any punctuation. George Bernard Shaw wrote that "Punctuation is historically an aid to reading aloud." The extra space at the end of sentences was incorporated because the typewriter had uneven type fonts, and people could not tell a sentence was over when it was typed. On a typewritten paper two spaces stood out. Now we type on a computer screen and guess what? Computers do not recognize the extra space after the period in a browser format. We have come full circle, which exactly what a period is. I am for using the space bar once after a period or question mark, what say you?
This was typed with one space after all punctuation marks, and was in consideration of Mother Earth on our designated "Earth Day"
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