Two. Period.

In the recent debate over how many spaces should come after a period, I unequivocally come down on the side of two. In the words of this blog’s author, “Taking the extra space away from a period strips it of its dignity.”

Unfortunately, it appears that there are forces mounting against this belief, including the Associated Press and the much despised MLA:

"Use a single space after the period at the end of a sentence." -- The Associated Press Stylebook

"Because it is increasingly common for papers and manuscripts to be prepared with a single space after all punctuation marks, this spacing is shown in the examples in the MLA Handbook and the MLA Style Manual.”

Global warming and nuclear proliferation have nothing on this vile and dangerous movement to remove the second space after the period. It must be stopped. Please join me in opposition to this insane and unnecessary movement.

Speaking of periods, the iPhone has a glorious feature that allows the user to automatically place a period and a single space after a sentence just by hitting the spacebar twice on the virtual keyboard. While I adore this feature, I’ve found that I text and email so much on my iPhone that I have begun to do this in Microsoft Word, which lacks this feature. So instead of periods after my sentences, I will sometimes find three spaces and no punctuation whatsoever: two spaces from my attempt to activate this iPhone feature plus the extra one I always add in order to have the requisite and appropriate two spaces after a period.

I suddenly find myself hoping that Doubleday agrees with my opinion or I may find my first novel, SOMETHING MISSING, maligned with one space after each period.

I shudder to even consider this possibility.