Double Spaces—Wrong??

In honor of National Punctuation Day yesterday...

Several weeks ago I was at an apartment in my ward playing games on a Sunday night. Catch Phrase was rolling and one girl mentioned something that you put two of at the end of a sentence. The team guessed "space," which was the correct answer, but I couldn't help but mutter "Except you don't" under my breath that only those closest to me could hear. Then the kid next to me gives me an approving look and says, "I know."

And then we move on. :)

It's not too big of a deal, but I've found that while many people ARE aware, there are still lots that have no idea that you aren't supposed to put two spaces after the end of a sentence. I've found it funny because one of the first things I ALWAYS have to do when I edit new material is run a Find and Search replace all double spaces with just one space. Every style guide and dozens of grammar books say to just use one space. OK, I can accept that, but why? I've always thought that the two spaces was something our middle school teachers would teach us just to MAKE SURE we got it right. But that doesn't really make sense. Which is why I LOVED this podcast by Grammar Girl—both the question and the response.

Grammar Girl—Spacing Out


Turns out, the whole thing relates back to typewriters. Simply put, each letter used to take up the same space, no matter its size. So the "i" and the "m," had the same space, but obviously the "i" would be surrounded by a little extra. To adapt to that, any typist had to put TWO spaces after a sentence to make sure you can recognize the space. Today, typing is done proportionally, and there is no need for the extra space.

Wow, ya gotta love it right. :P

Here are some of the other basic, oh very basic, but common errors I see a lot.

feel vs. believe

Feel refers to something you can touch, a sense
Believe is a thought or idea

Wrong: "They feel that the position was not assigned properly."
Right: "They believe Jim should have received the promotion."

try and vs. try to

For some reason this phrase has become ever so common. You can use "try and" to indicate two separate things, but if it's one...well, use try to.

Right: "I'm going to try and hope it will all work out." (Two separate things. I'll try and hope. I'll not just try hoping. .. I hope I made the difference clear. :P)

Wrong: "I'm going to try and make it to the gym for my Zumba class."
Right: "I'm going to try to make it to the gym."

over vs. more than

There's more than one opinion on this, but check Grammar Girl's post. I go with the tradition use that "over" actually means OVER, a sort of direction, not more than.

Right:
"I stepped over the puddle."
"There were more than 100 people attending."