[Mediawiki-l] TinyMCE

[Steve VanSlyck]

I'm not talking about systems, I'm talking about National Geographic. 
Scientific American. Time. Newsweek. &c.

"The view at /CMOS/ is that there is no reason for two spaces after a 
period in /published/ work. Some people, however---my colleagues 
included---prefer it, relegating this preference to their personal 
correspondence and notes. I've noticed in old American books printed in 
the few decades before and after the turn of the last century (ca. 
1870--1930 at least) that there seemed to be a trend in publishing to 
use extra space (sometimes quite a bit of it) after periods. And many 
people were taught to use that extra space in typing class (I was). But 
introducing two spaces after the period causes problems: (1) it is 
inefficient, requiring an extra keystroke for every sentence; (2) even 
if a program is set to automatically put an extra space after a period, 
such automation is never foolproof; (3) there is no proof that an extra 
space actually improves readability---as your comment suggests, it's 
probably just a matter of familiarity (Who knows? perhaps it's actually 
more efficient to read with less regard for sentences as individual 
units of thought---many centuries ago, for example in ancient Greece, 
there were no spaces even between words, and no punctuation); (4) two 
spaces are harder to control for than one in electronic documents (I 
find that the earmark of a document that imposes a two-space rule is a 
smattering of instances of both three spaces and one space after a 
period, and two spaces in the middle of sentences); and (5) two spaces 
can cause problems with line breaks in certain programs.

So, in our efficient, modern world, I think there is no room for two 
spaces after a period. In the opinion of this particular copyeditor, 
this is a good thing."

http://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/CMS_FAQ/OneSpaceorTwo/OneSpaceorTwo03.html


Michael Daly wrote:
> Steve VanSlyck wrote:
>
>   
>> Pick up and examine any _professionally_ published book, magazine, or 
>> newspaper and you won't find double spaces.