""Who says two spaces is wrong?" they wanted to know.

Typographers, that's who. The people who study and design the typewritten word decided long ago that we should use one space, not two, between sentences. "

I really think this guy Farhad Manjoo is trying to buy an argument where one doesn't exist. Perhaps he's practicing for April Fools' Day which isn't far off!

In his aforementioned quote, either he fails to justify his statements/claims or he covers a lot of mileage to prove minor points, same goes for the rest of his post. Sure, he has links to references and that fine (and the ones I looked at I didn't dispute,)—however that's not the most significant point.

Just because someone or authority dictates or pontificates from upon high that something is this or that, or is supposed to be a certain way etc. doesn't give that person or anything he says higher authority or even any credibility whatsoever. Moreover, often so-called 'orthodoxy' can actually be wrong or misinterpreted.

That said, professional standards are very important, so is the craft and experience of the artisan. However, 'double spacing after a stop between sentences' simply doesn't drop into this category, it's a lower-order exercise. It is not as if the typist who puts in a 'double-stop' is 'performing' at the level of a Graphic artists or typesetter does when he/she say typesets a novel in Palatino for general market release.

If the typist does worry thus, then I'd humbly suggest that he/she is overly obsessed about the matter or has some kind of fetish about it.

(No, I'm not being derogatory here as I actually understand the issue. Let me give you an example. When, say, I'm in a supermarket checkout aisle that has a checkout sign to the effect "People with less than 12 items" then I have a strong urge to cross out 'less' and replace it with the correct word 'fewer' but I never act upon it.)

It boils down to this, I am a very fussy person but nowhere as fussy as Farhad Manjoo, he strikes me as bordering on the obsessive.

The Issues as I perceive them:
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1. I use 'double spacing after a stop between sentences' and a colon because it emphases the stop or colon itself. That's to say, it strengthens the action of the punctuation and makes the page more readable. Moreover, I have done so for years, and I have no intention of stopping.

1.1 Often seriffed fonts with various degrees of kerning etc. one often sees in books makes the punctuation almost illegible—concomitantly, thus so the text. There are many, many examples of this done by so-called professionals!

1.2 THE FACT THAT THE FONT/LAYOUT METRICS FOR THOSE TYPEFACES IS PRECISELY CORRECT AS SPECIFIED FOR THE TYPEFACE/FONT COMBINATION DOES NOT NECESSARILY ENSURE GOOD READABILITY. THESE BOOKS WOULD BE BETTER OFF BY INCREASING INTER-SENTENCE SPACING [ALBEIT NOT NECESSARILY TWO FULL SPACES]. SAME ALSO APPLIES TO THE INAPPROPRIATELY SMALL INTER-PARAGRAPH SPACING.

2. Many others who I have observed over the years and who use two spaces after a stop also consider the matter a readability issue—double spacing often makes text more readable/understandable! Fact!

2.1 If I type a large document with single spacing after the stop and then I read it back some weeks afterwards (after I've forgotten the fine detail of what I typed), then do the same with identical text but with double spacing, then I find the double spacing considerably easier to read. In my case, it's a fact (perhaps for Farhad Manjoo there's no difference but he shouldn't criticise those who do find the increased spacing better).

2.2 You might say the 'test' in 2.1 is fanciful and that I'm lying about it, as who would ever bother doing a comparison like that in the first place? However, I can assure you that such comparisons do happen. Often, I can have two identical documents even down to the font and almost to the layout. It mostly occurs when 'copy' goes into web pages or HTML editors that are set to automatically convert double spacing to single [i.e.: the page defaults to single spacing]. In fact, such comparisons happen quite regularly.

2.3 By insisting that I read 'single-spaced' documents then Farhad Manjoo would effectively disadvantage me because of my 'handicap'. There are many other typists out there who expedience reading text the same way I do. So what to do with us all? Perhaps shoot us, or put us all down like a sick dog?

2.4 In my case, the double spacing after a stop/colon is so ingrained that I can get rather annoyed and irritated when posting to web sites that automatically convert from 'double' to 'single' space when posted. Sometimes there is no way around the problem but often there is. use ALT-255 or another Unicode blank symbol to insert the extra blank. If enough of us did that then the nastily little authoritarian people who write code for such pages might eventually get the message!

3. Farhad Manjoo seems to spend precious little time discussing the very real effect 'double spacing after a stop' has when the typeface and its fonts are changed. Sometimes double spacing look awkward and often it does not depending on which typeface is used. Use a modern typing font such as Calibri and it hardly matters. This is a far too detailed a subjects cover here, suffice to say, different typefaces and different weights have a psycho-visual impact on the reader—that's why we use different typefaces with various font weights, etc.

3.1 The fact, that Farhad Manjoo is 'blinded' by a page of 'spaces' between sentences when 'double-space after stop' is used means that he actually perceives the page in a different visual way as do many others do. If so, I can actually understand his problem. Like many, I DO NOT notice these 'spaces', for me the effect is the 'area-under-a-curve' stuff—the integrand if you like—which, overall, makes the page have better readability performance when double space is used. No more, no less!

3.2 If disturbing 'double-space after stop' 'spaces' on a page cause Farhad Manjoo so much bother, then what does he do when the line spacing/line height is changed to double or even triple height. What does he do when the character spacing is adjusted or the kerning not set to his liking? It must be a nightmare for him—he must go around examining pages for "correctness"—and if they're "wrong" his distraction must make it difficult for him to comprehend the page.

[Actually, I can understand typeface/layout distraction. I'll often not buy a book if the typeface / fonts etc. are very poorly executed (but it does have to be bad, usually the content is more important and overrules my resistance).

3.3 Can Farhad Manjoo tell me how he copes with automatically justified text [i.e.: text with no ragged right]? Often such text can look truly horrible, nevertheless, it is a standard layout methodology used and accepted by Graphic artists and fontographers. Does this mean that because it's "officially" part of the layout 'canon' then Farhad Manjoo will fully accept it even though it is distractingly ugly?

3.4 Graphic artists and fontographers, etc. aren't the right people to judge the single/double spacing after stop rule/issue. These people are trained to notice the finest details with respect to the printed page and thus have a far too critical an eye.

3.4.1 The average user rarely notices 'typeface issues' at the 'minutiae' level, in fact I'm often horrified by the typeface/font 'sins' that so many are actually capable of committing.

3.4.2 I know, I am very fussy (in fact pedantic) about the typefaces and font weights that I use. I select them very carefully. Nevertheless, I'm not as fixed in my views as some professionals who work with type on a daily basis are. I am currently working on a long report. Considerable effort went into selecting the margins, footnote size, main heading (Aharoni 13pt), sub-headings (Aharoni, 10pt), main text (Calibri 10.5pt) block-text quotes (Rockwell 9 & 9.5), footers (Calibri 9). This attention to detail shows that I am sensitive to the issues of typefaces and layout, and it's why I reckon people who whinge and complain about the 'double spacing after stop' matter are just overly obsessive.

3.4.3 Why would I take the time to respond in so much detail to Farhad Manjoo post unless I was reasonably obsessive? Well, even though I accept and understand the purity—or should I sanctity—of the fontographer's typeface metrics, and, ipso facto, that I also understand that 'double spaces after stop' technically violates the aesthetics of these metrics, that it is such a small and trivial (but often useful) matter in the greater scheme of things that I consider it almost unworthy of discussion.

Simply, if I'm obsessed with such trivial details and it doesn't worry me one iota, then that Farhad Manjoo and his ilk in a special class of their own. QED.

4. Microsoft Word has a setup setting which automatically enforces 'double spaces between sentences'—when set, put in a single space or three spaces and the grammar checker kicks in with a wiggly underline! If Microsoft took the trouble to provide the option in Word then clearly many use it and find it acceptable!

4.1 One of the reasons I do not use OpenOffice/LibreOffice very often is that it DOES NOT ENFORCE the 'double space after a stop between sentences'!

LibreOffice developers take note! Stop shooting yourselves in the collective foot and give users the options they want!