One or two spaces after a full stop?

[Wheatie]

I always thought it was two, as that's how I was taught to type 15 years ago.. but someone is trying to convince me it has changed and now we should only have one! Can it be true?

2 spaces in publishing

I was taught two spaces.

Our house style is 2 spaces.

2 spaces in Pitman typing tests.

It has changed now and should only be one space.

One imo

Yes, only one now.

Exactly. With typing it had two spaces because it made it clearer when reading (typewriter font is 'courier' from memory). With the advent of word processing the new fonts available were better shaped for reading (courier is quite square) and so two spaces were no longer deemed necessary.

The majority say one.. Google says one.. am I just going to have to get used to one space I'm so set in my ways!

Two spaces after a full stop or colon; one space after a comma or semi-colon.

I was taught to use two spaces, too.

I'm not giving up my two spaces. Don't think I could retrain my fingers anyway.

It was always two. People now say one. I prefer two, but my Swype keyboard likes one.

Two. I didn't know it had changed to one, don't think I can change the habit of a lifetime now.

Sticking with two here as well.

One, always one. I spend half my life find and replacing double spaces in copy typed by people who were taught the old way which may have been correct once but just looks wrong now.

Two was to do with typing on manual machines. I was taught two. I think one is more to do with the rise in sms use as much as anything else. Both are acceptable but I would argue that for clarity two is preferable.

I do two, my newspaper reporter husband says one.

Interestingly, I can't see any difference in the spacing in the posts of those who say two spaces and those who say one.

My iPad always converts two spaces into a full stop, one space and a capital letter to start the next sentence, so I've got used to one space now.

While we're on the subject of punctuation, shouldn't an ellipsis be three dots?

I was taught two; it's now one for most house styles (including our's), for the reasons other give

One looks all wrong to me. I always use two, but one after a comma or semi colon.

For the last twenty years publishers have asked me for one space only after full stops.

On a typewriter or using a fixed pitch font, two spaces. However, modern word processors using proportional fonts seem to do if for you. If you look at the space they leave in the sequence, full stop, space, capital letter, it is more than they leave between words in a sentence, but less than the space they leave if you put two spaces between words by accident. I have become a convert, and now often search and replace /space/ /space/ /fs/ with /space/ /fs/ but I may be going a bit far... Equally the sequence /fs/ /space /paragraph/ arrhh, Why not just drag your nails down a blackboard..

I was always taught to use one space. I remember having to correct some letter templates where the author had used three!

...(including our's)...

Get out!

While we're on the subject of punctuation, shouldn't an ellipsis be three dots?

Yes. However, there is no solid convention that I can find about whether there should be spaces before or after the ellipsis, or inbetween the dots, so I think it's open to personal preference.