I was told that the new norm
in writing is one space after punctuation.
Why?
Is it to save some trees?
Is it for less wear and tear on the space bar?
Is it because we no longer have time to breathe between sentences?
The sentences are getting shorter too,
to accommodate our attention spans.
No more Dickensonian paragraph long first lines.
“It was the best of times; it was the worst of times…”
Was it? Is it?
Comma usage is down too.
The little dimples that break in two
long attached words like a kit-kat bar.
Are we projecting the cultures
A.D.D. tendencies to the page?
What page?
The screen glows and our faces become light blue.
I will not go into the rant about cursive no longer being taught.
I will not keyboard my way out of number two pencils.
I wonder what Wendell Berry thinks about this?
Don’t get me wrong, I love trees.
My mother’s ashes are buried underneath a majestic sycamore.
I love the sound of pages turning.
My wife might get me a Kindle for my birthday.
I wrote this in poetic form so I wouldn’t be tempted to double space between punctuation.
Gerald the Writer 
Jerry, that was thought provocing …. wait…..what? What were we talkingabout??!
exactly
Hey, the computer took out all my extra spaces….now my comment is less funny…sigh
But it is still funny brother John.
My brain is programmed to put two spaces after a period. I learned this a long time ago on a manual typewriter. I think a page looks neater without everything all scrunched together. Did this one space thing start when texting started because of limited character space? It is so hard to retrain my fingers.
I am slowly one spacing it Noreen. Thanks for stopping by!
To space or to double space, that is the question.
OoooOOOooo…smart, Very smart.
This is so real…
I loved it!!!
ha…i am glad curvise is gone…i have always been a print man…single space, eh i dont care…i always jack up punctuation thought…unless i really need it…smiles…
It’s true! Styles, they are a’changing. I work with it every day at the magazine. But take heart. A new generation is coming, one more word-loving than we can fathom.