I was trained in two spaces in grad school and have stood firmly by the habit, but lately, I've been hearing mutterings of it being as outdated as organdy aprons.

Only lately?

Oh my good god, NO. This is a leftover from typewriters, babe. NO need for it now. I take out all those extra spaces, every manuscript I edit, and grumble about it the whole time.

This. Two spaces after a period is of the devil, and although we have a macro to take care of it, we still mutter imprecations.

Only lately?

Really, only lately. At least, none of my editors ever seemed to care one way or the other. Where I've begun hearing the grumblings are for editors for e-publishers.

I guess the two spaces thing dates me as I learned to type on a typewriter and have never successfully broken the habit of two spaces; I now live in fear of posting more than a sentence here, expect poorly punctuated run on sentences henceforth.

I have never gotten out of the habit of two spaces after a period, either, and it was only within the past few years that I ever heard there was debate. In high school, some teachers would take off points for assignments turned in with only one space after each period.

Oooh, I hate that too, but I set a custom template for my Word docs, so I rarely have to deal with it.

Teach me!

I now live in fear of posting more than a sentence here

Oh, don't! Seriously. For all the editors/writers here, I've never seen anyone lay a grammar smackdown on anyone else. The serial comma debate is just good-natured heckling between nerds.

And even the editors/writers here don't have flawless grammar when posting. God knows *I* don't.

Kevin, which Prime Minister and why didn't it stick?

Typos are why we have the edit function. If they drive you nuts, you can fix them. If not, that's fine too.

I used to automatically do the two hits to the spacebar, but my current keyboards feel so different from typewriters that the muscle memory has been overridden.

Teach me!

As soon as I remember, I'll tell you!