While I can't say that I've encountered such inflammatory disagreements here at fandom_grammar, we grammarians certainly have our disagreements, don't we?
Given that LiveJournal, and pretty much any HTML text, automatically truncates two or more spaces to one space, you've probably been doing it for years here without even realizing it.
. I have to admit, one space is an on-going, slow-simmering irritation. I read an explanation about how the modern font-faces give a little extra space after a full-stop, and that's enough... but it's really not. IF the next sentence starts with a regular word, that cap letter helps me notice the period, and my mind closes the sentence. But if the next sentence starts with a person's name or 'I', which would be capped anywhere in a sentence, I frequently miss the period, then find myself stumbling into a run-on sentence that makes no sense. Then I have to stop, back up, search out the period, and separate the ideas properly.
And yes, I know HTML forces a single space even when I'm typing two. You'd think, after 20-odd years on the 'Net, I'd have adjusted my reading, but I still do the miss-stumble-back up routine fairly frequently. I HATE it. That's why I copy/paste my fave stories into MS Word, and add the double spaces and curly quotes for comfortable re-reading
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I fully appreciate that you can back up your preference with experience that shows that one way is more difficult for readers than the other. Thanks for sharing this anecdote!
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I have to admit, one space is an on-going, slow-simmering irritation. I read an explanation about how the modern font-faces give a little extra space after a full-stop, and that's enough... but it's really not. IF the next sentence starts with a regular word, that cap letter helps me notice the period, and my mind closes the sentence. But if the next sentence starts with a person's name or 'I', which would be capped anywhere in a sentence, I frequently miss the period, then find myself stumbling into a run-on sentence that makes no sense. Then I have to stop, back up, search out the period, and separate the ideas properly.
And yes, I know HTML forces a single space even when I'm typing two. You'd think, after 20-odd years on the 'Net, I'd have adjusted my reading, but I still do the miss-stumble-back up routine fairly frequently. I HATE it. That's why I copy/paste my fave stories into MS Word, and add the double spaces and curly quotes for comfortable re-reading ( ... )
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