Were you taught in school to use two spaces after a full stop at the end of a sentence? Or maybe you picked up this habit when you learned to type using a typewriter. Well, it turns out that the correct usage is to leave only one space after a full stop.

In today’s age of modern communication, the two-spaces-after-a-period construction seems to be outmoded. So how did the two spaces rule come about anyway? Back in the day, during the typewriter age, monospace typing was used, where every letter took up the same amount of space. So the space for the skinny lowercase “i” was just as wide for a capital “W”. This not only created an awkward amount of white space between letters, but also made it difficult to ascertain where certain words started or ended. To ensure good readability, typists would add an additional space at the conclusion of a sentence.

But thankfully, computers are now able to write in “proportional fonts”, removing the need for double spaces. However, this rule remained etched in the minds of people who grew up during the typewriter era, so much so that they mistakenly thought it was the grammatically correct way to type.

Now that you know, happy punctuating!

Reference: https://melmagazine.com/for-the-love-of-god-stop-putting-two-spaces-after-a-period-acd45fe4673d

Image source: http://www.jshermanstudio.com/blog/page/11/