As I read an article on Slate.com about how two spaces after a sentence's period is a writing faux pas, one of John McEnroe's most infamous on-court blowups came to mind: "You cannot be serious!"
And according to the article's author, yes, he is serious.
So it looks like millions of us, including myself, are wrong for having been inserting that extra, evil space after a written sentence. And Mr. Manjoo makes us feel horrible for having neglected this rule. All that I have written over the years should have gotten a big red X for all those superfluous spaces. Too bad for me that the professors from my undergraduate years and up into my graduate work were not part of the 2-Space Gestapo.
The article itself is well written but the best part of it was a comment left by a reader. I'm paraphrasing, but he pretty much said that he wasn't going to take any typing advice from someone with a foreign sounding name. I couldn't help but bust out laughing when I first read it. Now, I can't read into that commenter's intent, but I doubt he meant it as a xenophobic observation as some folks have noted. I think it was a comical observation seeing that the article was not written by a regular Tom, Dick or Harry Smith.
Though I make no bones about my grammatical know-how, but it will take me a while to unlearn 20+ years of typing experience. Adding that good-for-nothing second space is as second nature to me as breathing or cheering against the New York Yankees.
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