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posted by Fnord666 on Friday May 11 2018, @12:26PM   Printer-friendly
from the BBC-thinks-it's-a-paragraph-break-after-a-period dept.

Submitted via IRC for Bytram

In what may be one of the most controversial studies of the year, researchers at Skidmore College—clearly triggered by a change in the American Psychological Association (APA) style book—sought to quantify the benefits of two spaces after a period at the end of a sentence. After conducting an eye-tracking experiment with 60 Skidmore students, Rebecca L. Johnson, Becky Bui, and Lindsay L. Schmitt found that two spaces at the end of a period slightly improved the processing of text during reading. The research was trumpeted by some press outlets as a vindication of two-spacers' superiority.

Source: https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/05/two-spaces-after-period-are-better-than-one-except-maybe-they-arent-study-finds/


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  • (Score: 2) by requerdanos on Friday May 11 2018, @03:00PM (3 children)

    by requerdanos (5997) Subscriber Badge on Friday May 11 2018, @03:00PM (#678404) Journal

    This study is garbage....just hand-waved at the end

    In a very, very few contexts, hand-waving is a perfectly valid generalization technique. I think this is one of them.

    Frankly, there is something like 90% of the population with no opinion or preference, and the other 10% is defined by one-spacers and two-spacers. You seem to be a one-spacer. I am a two-spacer*. I think there's room in the world for both of us. If either of us is uncomfortable with the spaceyness of a body of text, there is sed or search-and-replace. Many of the one-spacers and two-spacers get very emotional about their choices. I am happy to see some science, some facts, however meager, come into the discussion.

    useless:...obsolete and stupid...probably quite useless

    Many of the one-spacers and two-spacers get very emotional about their choices. I am happy to see some science, some facts, however meager, come into the discussion.

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    * And I strongly prefer oxford commas because for me, they help resolve potential ambiguity, have the favor of a more lengthy tradition, and just plain look better.

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 11 2018, @03:52PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 11 2018, @03:52PM (#678432)

    10% seems like a huge overstatement. It's probably more of a 1%, 0.1%, or even 0.01% range. Don't confuse "people on tech forums" with "general populace" :)

    Anyway, I'm a non-religious one-spacer, but I completely agree with you on the Oxford comma.

  • (Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Friday May 11 2018, @04:20PM

    by Grishnakh (2831) on Friday May 11 2018, @04:20PM (#678441)

    No, I'm not a one-spacer or a two-spacer. I made my position clear, but apparently most people are just too fucking stupid to understand anything besides being on Team A or Team B.

  • (Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Saturday May 12 2018, @12:03PM

    by maxwell demon (1608) on Saturday May 12 2018, @12:03PM (#678793) Journal

    And I strongly prefer oxford commas because for me, they help resolve potential ambiguity, […]

    They can as well introduce ambiguity.

    Example: My brother, a farmer, and I were walking along the street.

    How many people are walking? Is it two people (the first one being my brother, a farmer, and the second one being me)? Or is it three people (The first one being my brother, the second one being a farmer, and the third one being me)?

    Now without Oxford comma: My brother, a farmer and I were walking along the street.

    Here it's clear that it is three people walking, since if I wanted to say that my brother is a farmer, then another comma after "farmer" would have been mandatory.

    --
    The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.