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My position on this spacing issue is that it is soooo simple to globally
replace double spaces with one, and since it is "correct" to single
space between sentences and after colons (whether or not it is preferred
for readability), I do it that way. I was taught this back in the early
1980s when I was a stringer for the Washington Star and when I worked as
a typesetter in the mid 1980s.
I'm going to try my darndest to get the Pentagon to allow single spaces
between sentences for their official documents, if I can. They seem to
want 2 spaces over there in the 5-sided building as a general rule. I've
been told that most internet servers ignore the second consecutive
space, and these days a lot of unclassified documents are compiled from
docs moved through cyberspace. I'd hate to have to go through a document
and put 2 spaces between sentences. To me, it's too much of a waste of
time to distinguish where 2 spaces might go in documents that comprise
the work of several others, which most DoD documentation is. GPO may
call for one word space between sentences (I think) as Chicago does, and
as most recently published style manuals do, but the DoD does its own
thing (as in use DoD vs. DOD for its initialism).
As I posted before, I can't recall seeing any books, newspapers, or
magazines that use a wider space between sentences, and I don't believe
that takes away from their readability one bit.
JMHO, ~~Lady Di
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