Every once in a while, when I accidentally don't tap the space bar twice at the start of a new sentence, I think of a college professor I once had during my second semester at the U of A.
She taught English 370B, a section that covered literature from about the 1700s to the 1900s. A few weeks into the semester, she advised us to stop putting two spaces in between each sentence. "With all the technology nowadays," she said in her soft Georgia drawl, "it's been decided that you only need one space to separate sentences. It saves space." She never enforced her new rule, but made it clear that our papers should start adhering to her new standard.
I didn't think much of it at the time. She was, like most English professors, a little crazy (looking back, I would say it's safe to assume that 80% of my professors were social misfits), so I took her comment in stride and safely disregarded it.
However, having graduated, I now have the ability to take a step back and analyze comments like hers. I'd never heard of the new rule before she brought it up, and all the classes I took afterwards never mentioned anything about converting the double space to a single.
Maybe she was misinformed. Perhaps she was referring to a different field of writing, like technical writing. I kinda doubt that though.
I wonder if she was a rogue professor. Maybe she felt that the world had done her much harm, and so she concocted a scheme to deal humanity an utter blow by convincing all her students to cut their spacing in half. I think that's more like it.
English professors are so petty.
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p.s. I really wish I hadn't messed up the shot above.
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