How many spaces after a period?

From the unofficial Typographic 'bible'" The Elements of Typographic Style by Robert Bringhurst he has the following to say:

“In the nineteenth century, which was a dark and inflationary age in typography and type design, many compositors were encouraged to stuff extra space between sentences. Generations of twentieth century typists were then taught to do the same, by hitting the spacebar twice after every period [full stop]. Your typing as well as your typesetting will benefit from unlearning this quaint Victorian habit. As a general rule, no more than a single space is required after a period, colon or any other mark of punctuation.”

Sorry for my as usual unchecked first sentence!! I'm sure people more concerned at proof-reading that typography will be hating me as much as using 2 spaces annoys me.

He goes on to say:

"Larger spaces (e.g. en spaces) are themselves punctuation.

The rule is sometimes altered, however, when setting classical Latin and Greek, romanized Sanskrit, phonetics or other kinds of texts in which sentences begin with lowercase letters. In the absence of a capital, a full en space between sentences may be welcome.

"quaint Victorian habit"? lol I am a steampunk!

I was taught to use two spaces, which I did up until a couple years ago when I successfully started using only one.

However, this thread is seriously making me think about switching back to two.

Knock yourself out, if I ever have to set your copy I know how find and replace works.

FIND: ". "
REPLACE: "big fat hairy penis"

These arguments all boil down to "let us not forsake the gods of our fathers" vs. "god is dead, you silly geese".

When learning to write with a pen(cil) while in very early years at school, I remember vaguely being taught one finger width after a comma, two after a full stop. Not with typing though.

That's all very well, but what if you are an elephant?

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SFpsDAL4oKE

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

Poll Results
Option Votes
1 76
2 12

About what I expected.

I use 1 space. In typing class we were taught 2 spaces (1991, on typewriters) and I kept doing it until ~2005 when I was SCHOCKED to learn that the rationale behind 2 spaces didn't apply to most typing on a computer.

It was not difficult at all to retrain myself, though the double-tap on the space bar did feel really satisfying.

Double-tapping two-space trogs is equally satisfying, imo.

I am thinking this poll solves nothing. nothing. the bleak futility of it rises up and threatens to engulf me.

i just got an iphone and i'm worried the period trick is gonna bring back some old habits