The question of whether to add that extra, wasted space after sentence-ending punctuation is hot again! For your reading pleasure:
- “Space Invaders: Why you should never, ever use two spaces after a period.” by Farhad Manjoo from Slate;
- “Do You Double Space After Periods?” by Alissa Walker from GOOD Design (also picked up as “Do you double space after periods?” by Catherine Faas at Holy Kaw! [where I dropped a comment])
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I see both sides. One space certainly saves space – probably several pages in a book.
Two spaces makes for more accurate speed reading. Yes, I still read large books and other documents. There is insufficient time to stop and ask whether the sentence is ending or whether it is a run on sentence.
The illiterate writings in many blogs these days, where the authors give up capitalization, punctuation, and most grammar, need all the help they can get for communication. They need more than two and maybe as many as five or six.
Ultimately, the object is often communication and all help should be directed to that end.