Look at This. It Looks Atrocious.

There is an evil on the horizon that is threatening to corrupt our society to its core. It’s this movement that says it’s now grammatically correct to just have one space between sentences instead of the traditional two. Talk about letting the terrorists win. I don’t think I’m being over dramatic here when I say that this is an atrocity of unparalleled proportion.      

I’m assuming this trend is a side effect of the overwhelming popularity of texting and instant messaging. Sure it makes sense to be a little loose on the number of spaces between sentences in these formats, but texting and instant messaging is a no holds barge orgy of grammatical chaos. In texting, “c u L8r” is a complete functioning sentence, translating to “See you later.” “OMG!” is shorthand for “Wow!” and “LOL” translates to “I recognize and understand that you were attempting to be humorous in your previous communication.” LOL!

This is all fine and dandy when you’re typing on a two inch screen only using your thumbs (and let’s be honest here, you have fat thumbs), but as for more formal writing, it’s just a hideous pattern of injustice. Take the following examples:    

     The sun will set in an hour. It should be very pretty.
     The sun will set in an hour.  It should be very pretty.

As you can see the first pair of sentences is horrid. It’s like looking at the mangled wreckage of a fatal car accident. On the other hand the second pair is absolutely gorgeous! It’s like watching a mother bald eagle feed her young. It’s rejuvenating and I actually feel like I now have more energy from reading it. But if you are still not convinced, look at this example:

     The Priest was arrested. He was charged with sodomizing 26 children and 14 puppies.
     You have just won the lottery.  All of your dreams will now come true.

You tell me which pair of sentences you like better.

Some of you more astute (read anal) readers may have noticed that the sentences in this post are only followed by a single space. I apologize profusely, but I had no choice. Due to the communist formatting style of our blog’s host site, if we put two spaces at the end of each sentence we run the risk of of having unintentional indenting of new sentence. That’s the kind of grotesque pleasure these sickos get with an additional space.

So in conclusion, my fat thumbed anal readers, do we really want our children growing up in a world where sentences are only followed by a single space? Have we gotten so lazy that adding that second space now requires too much effort to be bothered with? There’s one thing I remember learning from my college health class is that to obtain the quickest high, drugs should be taken intravenously. But only having one space in between sentences is one high I don’t want to be a part of.

Pat:  No disagreement here. In fact, in reading your two contrasting sentences above, where the only noticeable difference is the extra space in the second sample, I just spit a bit of food onto my computer screen as a result of uncontrollable laughter. I think it might have been a speck of sausage. Damn. It was good sausage, and now it’s wasted. You’re right--those single spaces are dangerous and costly!

Christian:  Great. How many specks of quality sausage do we have to sacrifice before we learn? Is there no end to this horror?