The Oxford Comma

[Duke87]

For me, this is flat out an OCD thing. If I am reading a document, and the author of said document omits a serial comma, I notice, and I find it quite jarring because it breaks the flow of the list.


Now, I can appreciate that if you're writing a newspaper and printing tens of thousands of copies of the same thing every day, the cost savings from not using ink on an extra comma here and there can add up after a while. This is why the AP style manual says to do it this way, it's a style manual written for print journalism. But when you're writing something that isn't intended to be printed, that reason for omitting the comma ceases to be relevant.

It is in that regard not unlike the insistence of some people on continuing to put two spaces after a period when typing on a computer - it is a thing that persists out of habit and institutional inertia, because people don't understand why they were taught to do it that way and don't appreciate that it no longer makes sense to do. Indeed, I've confronted coworkers about this and none have been able to justify the practice with anything more than "well that's what you're supposed to do, that's how I was taught to do it".

Fortunately, it is very easy in word processing software to eradicate double spaces with Find and Replace.

[Scott5114]

I don't use the Oxford comma, but to make up for it I put two commas between each of the other items on the list.

[Beltway]

It is in that regard not unlike the insistence of some people on continuing to put two spaces after a period when typing on a computer - it is a thing that persists out of habit and institutional inertia, because people don't understand why they were taught to do it that way and don't appreciate that it no longer makes sense to do. Indeed, I've confronted coworkers about this and none have been able to justify the practice with anything more than "well that's what you're supposed to do, that's how I was taught to do it".

I continue to use two spaces because it reads better and provides more delineation between sentences.  It takes very little extra effort.

I will grant that YMMV.

[DaBigE]

It is in that regard not unlike the insistence of some people on continuing to put two spaces after a period when typing on a computer - it is a thing that persists out of habit and institutional inertia, because people don't understand why they were taught to do it that way and don't appreciate that it no longer makes sense to do. Indeed, I've confronted coworkers about this and none have been able to justify the practice with anything more than "well that's what you're supposed to do, that's how I was taught to do it".

I continue to use two spaces because it reads better and provides more delineation between sentences.  It takes very little extra effort.

It takes even less effort to not do it. 

[hbelkins]

It is in that regard not unlike the insistence of some people on continuing to put two spaces after a period when typing on a computer - it is a thing that persists out of habit and institutional inertia, because people don't understand why they were taught to do it that way and don't appreciate that it no longer makes sense to do. Indeed, I've confronted coworkers about this and none have been able to justify the practice with anything more than "well that's what you're supposed to do, that's how I was taught to do it".

I continue to use two spaces because it reads better and provides more delineation between sentences.  It takes very little extra effort.

I will grant that YMMV.

Computers (and their word-processor predecessors) were supposed to sense that the space between sentences was different than the space between words, and automatically insert a little extra space to preserve the appearance of a second space.

[Duke87]

Computers (and their word-processor predecessors) were supposed to sense that the space between sentences was different than the space between words, and automatically insert a little extra space to preserve the appearance of a second space.

So, the issue is one of kerning. Manual typewriters had a technological limitation that the text from them was all monospaced: that is to say, every character took up the same amount of horizontal space, whether it was a period or a capital W. When you typed a period, it was generally centered on the horizontal space allotted to it. But... because periods aren't very wide, this awkwardly resulted in some space appearing between the period and the last letter of the word before it, especially when the last word ended with an f, r, v, or w - because the rightmost part of these letters is not in line with where the period goes.

In order to compensate for this, people started typing two spaces after periods to balance it out.

But modern computer fonts are not monospaced, and the kerning is dynamic. There is no awakward space left of the period to balance out.

If you still think it looks better with two spaces in spite of this, well, that's a valid opinion - but any assertion that this is "the right way" to do it is incorrect.

[oscar]

It is in that regard not unlike the insistence of some people on continuing to put two spaces after a period when typing on a computer - it is a thing that persists out of habit and institutional inertia, because people don't understand why they were taught to do it that way and don't appreciate that it no longer makes sense to do. Indeed, I've confronted coworkers about this and none have been able to justify the practice with anything more than "well that's what you're supposed to do, that's how I was taught to do it".

Fortunately, it is very easy in word processing software to eradicate double spaces with Find and Replace.

I habitually put two spaces at the end of sentences, until I confronted some very tight page limits for court filings. Eliminating the double space was one small and easy measure to keep within page limits, though we employed other tricks (like shrinking margins, fonts, and paragraph spacing) as well.

The courts got wise to all the font/format games lawyers were playing, and imposed word limits. But I still try to avoid double spaces, especially for the Internet.

[SSOWorld]

It is in that regard not unlike the insistence of some people on continuing to put two spaces after a period when typing on a computer - it is a thing that persists out of habit and institutional inertia, because people don't understand why they were taught to do it that way and don't appreciate that it no longer makes sense to do. Indeed, I've confronted coworkers about this and none have been able to justify the practice with anything more than "well that's what you're supposed to do, that's how I was taught to do it".

Fortunately, it is very easy in word processing software to eradicate double spaces with Find and Replace.

I habitually put two spaces at the end of sentences, until I confronted some very tight page limits for court filings. Eliminating the double space was one small and easy measure to keep within page limits, though we employed other tricks (like shrinking margins, fonts, and paragraph spacing) as well.

The courts got wise to all the font/format games lawyers were playing, and imposed word limits. But I still try to avoid double spaces, especially for the Internet.

Aren't legal documents too long to begin with?  Maybe they want to reduce costs

[oscar]

Aren't legal documents too long to begin with?  Maybe they want to reduce costs

Judges have to read all that stuff, and so prefer brevity. But yeah, there is some irony in calling them "briefs".

[Beltway]

I continue to use two spaces because it reads better and provides more delineation between sentences.  It takes very little extra effort.

It takes even less effort to not do it. 

Here is an interesting article and blog comments, with many opinions both pro and con.
https://www.instructionalsolutions.com/blog/one-space-vs-two-after-period

[GenExpwy]

A couple of decades ago, I was a lurker on the CompuServe Desktop Publishing Forum. As I remember it, the experts there came to this consensus about why the two-space "rule"  came to exist:

The heart of the problem was that the typewriter became popular in the 1880s, which was the middle of what typographers call their "dark age" . In high-quality typesetting, such as in books, one space has always been the rule, from Gutenberg to today.

But in the second half of the 19th century, there was a sharp increase in cheap, low-quality typesetting, much of it for commercial ephemera such as price lists. A major characteristic of this work was a lot of extra spaces; printers charged by the length of the work, so more space meant more profit. Also, illiterate typesetters worked for lower pay – but they couldn't hyphenate, so they justified text by shoving in extra spaces.

When the typewriter was invented, the profession of typing teacher also had to be invented, with the first teachers making up the rules. Since they were teaching office workers, they used that badly-set commercial stuff of the era as a model for what typists ought to produce.

Ever since then, every typing teacher has simply repeated what they themselves were taught as "correct" , no matter that it started as an imitation of junk.

[formulanone]

Ever since then, every typing teacher has simply repeated what they themselves were taught as "correct" , no matter that it started as an imitation of junk.

To be fair, I think all humans do this in some way.

We tend to pass on beliefs and ideas that have limited to no basis in reality. Put enough of it together, and things make a bit more cosmic sense.

Having a college prof that marked off one point for every double-space after a period stopped my habit very quickly!

[GaryV]

I continue to use two spaces because it reads better and provides more delineation between sentences.  It takes very little extra effort.

It takes even less effort to not do it. 

Here is an interesting article and blog comments, with many opinions both pro and con.
https://www.instructionalsolutions.com/blog/one-space-vs-two-after-period

Interesting - the blog's example uses and Oxford comma.

[DaBigE]

Having a college prof that marked off one point for every double-space after a period stopped my habit very quickly!

Was there a limit to the number of points they'd take off? Or could you end up getting a '0' for having a term paper with all double-spaced sentences?

[formulanone]

Having a college prof that marked off one point for every double-space after a period stopped my habit very quickly!

Was there a limit to the number of points they'd take off? Or could you end up getting a '0' for having a term paper with all double-spaced sentences?

I don't remember; it was twenty-three years ago...

[Beltway]

Having a college prof that marked off one point for every double-space after a period stopped my habit very quickly!

Was there a limit to the number of points they'd take off? Or could you end up getting a '0' for having a term paper with all double-spaced sentences?

Doubtful.  They would have a style guide for papers and theses, which would state how they want that handled, or omit mention if they would accept either.  Probably not more than a few points taken off, but that might mean the difference in the final grade.

Every school and every professor could have differing approaches and standards and penalties.

[Scott5114]

The #1 argument against double spaces after periods in the modern era–the HTML specification treats anything more than a single space character as "whitespace". Whitespace is a catch-all term for spaces, tabs, etc generally used for making code (like HTML text) more legible. Since whitespace is meant to make the code more legible and not as a presentation part of the document, HTML parsers (like browsers) strip it out before displaying to the user. So the only thing double-spacing periods does is pad file sizes!

[Beltway]

The #1 argument against double spaces after periods in the modern era–the HTML specification treats anything more than a single space character as "whitespace". Whitespace is a catch-all term for spaces, tabs, etc generally used for making code (like HTML text) more legible. Since whitespace is meant to make the code more legible and not as a presentation part of the document, HTML parsers (like browsers) strip it out before displaying to the user. So the only thing double-spacing periods does is pad file sizes!

That's interesting, because when I code 2 spaces in HTML, the page displayed to the user has 2 spaces.

Word documents and their conversions to PSD display the 2 spaces, and they don't deal with HTML.

[kphoger]

Regarding double line spacing...

I recall a Calvin & Hobbes strip that I can't find an image of online for the life of me...  There was a three-page book report due, and Calvin made it to three pages by quadruple-spacing the text.  When the teacher complained, he replied "Are you referring to my dramatic use of white space?"  I find this especially funny, because Watterson has often been praised for his dramatic use of white space in drawing Calvin & Hobbes.

[formulanone]

The #1 argument against double spaces after periods in the modern era—the HTML specification treats anything more than a single space character as "whitespace". Whitespace is a catch-all term for spaces, tabs, etc generally used for making code (like HTML text) more legible. Since whitespace is meant to make the code more legible and not as a presentation part of the document, HTML parsers (like browsers) strip it out before displaying to the user. So the only thing double-spacing periods does is pad file sizes!

That's interesting, because when I code 2 spaces in HTML, the page displayed to the user has 2 spaces.

Word documents and their conversions to PSD display the 2 spaces, and they don't deal with HTML.

Gotta say that I've been using HTML since 1996, and it typically ignored rendering more than one space at a time, unless you used &nbsp; repeatedly, or formatted <align> as desired. Might have been some deprecated markup commands in the past, though?

Interestingly, this forum software allows you  to   add    your     own      spaces, which sometimes bugs me when I cut-and-paste something and leave extra room.

[Scott5114]

The #1 argument against double spaces after periods in the modern era–the HTML specification treats anything more than a single space character as "whitespace". Whitespace is a catch-all term for spaces, tabs, etc generally used for making code (like HTML text) more legible. Since whitespace is meant to make the code more legible and not as a presentation part of the document, HTML parsers (like browsers) strip it out before displaying to the user. So the only thing double-spacing periods does is pad file sizes!

That's interesting, because when I code 2 spaces in HTML, the page displayed to the user has 2 spaces.

Word documents and their conversions to PSD display the 2 spaces, and they don't deal with HTML.

Gotta say that I've been using HTML since 1996, and it typically ignored rendering more than one space at a time, unless you used &nbsp; repeatedly, or formatted <align> as desired. Might have been some deprecated markup commands in the past, though?

Interestingly, this forum software allows you  to   add    your     own      spaces, which sometimes bugs me when I cut-and-paste something and leave extra room.

If you bring up the source code of this page, you'll see that the forum converts extra spaces in posts to &nbsp; entities in order to force them to show up.

[Beltway]

If you bring up the source code of this page, you'll see that the forum converts extra spaces in posts to &nbsp; entities in order to force them to show up.

HTML has a lot of coding elements behind the scene of what the end user sees in their browser.

[Scott5114]

If you bring up the source code of this page, you'll see that the forum converts extra spaces in posts to &nbsp; entities in order to force them to show up.

HTML has a lot of coding elements behind the scene of what the end user sees in their browser.

No shit? It's almost like that's what my last two posts were about.

[formulanone]

If you bring up the source code of this page, you'll see that the forum converts extra spaces in posts to &nbsp; entities in order to force them to show up.

HTML has a lot of coding elements behind the scene of what the end user sees in their browser.

Ah, it was the <pre> </pre> tag. Forgot about that one, as I never needed it.

It let you type as many spaces as you wished, and didn't parse HTML commands between it; helpful if you needed to show a code example.

[Mrt90]

Why put any space at all between sentences?There is punctuation followed by a capital letter which already makes it clear there is a new sentence and already provides for spacing between words in consecutive sentences.This saves even more space and the sentence breaks are clear.Isn't this what the one-space people are saying about one space?

I'm kidding, of course, but as a person who learned to type on a manual typewriter the period-space-space habit is difficult to break.

I voted an enthusiastic YES to the Oxford comma.