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When Did the World Change?

BY RANDELL W. EOFF

Please note: This item is from our archives and was published in 2006. It is provided for historical reference. The content may be out of date and links may no longer function.

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I missed one of the great philosophical debates of my generation: whether there should be one or two spaces after a period. When I took Mrs. Higginbotham’s typing class in high school, we learned there are two spaces after a period. Mrs. Higginbotham’s position on this universal question was supported by our Gregg typewriting textbook. Were Mrs. Higginbotham and Mr. Gregg wrong?

It has not escaped my attention that the JofA , and many others, have converted to the modern one-space-after-a-period convention. It must be important because Mr. Zarowin instructs us on how to do this in his Technology Q&A column, “ A Fast Way to Replace Two Spaces After the Period With One ” ( JofA , Jul.06, page 82).

When did the world change from two spaces after a period to one? More important, why did it change? Thank you for providing this vital piece of information, but I think I will continue to observe the classical two-spaces-after-a-period rule.

Randell W. Eoff, CPA
Bernalillo, N.M.

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