LETTERS

BEYOND THE STANDARDS
The Last Word column about the San Antonio CPA and his WWII hero father (JofA, Nov.06, page 100) is the best article the JofA has published in my 20+ years of AICPA membership. So much of our profession and its topics by their very nature are extremely technical and, let’s face it, dry. It’s great to see beyond the exposure drafts and congressional tax proposals and experience the reality and rich history that make up the lives of our membership.

Thanks to Conrad for sharing and the JofA for publishing a great story.

Robert C. Klick, CPA
Fort Collins, Colo.

ONE SPACE OR TWO?
In “When Did the World Change?” (JofA, Oct.06, page 13) the letter writer asked, “When did the world change from two spaces after a period to one? More important, why did it change?”

With the transition from monospaced typefaces, such as on a typewriter, to proportional typefaces, such as those commonly used in word processing, the need for the extra space to visually mark the end of a sentence became moot. Today, section 6.11 of the Chicago Manual of Style states in typeset matter, one space, not two (in other words, a regular word space), follows any mark of punctuation that ends a sentence, whether a period, a colon, a question mark, an exclamation point or closing quotation marks. For nontypeset material, section 2.12 states that a single character space, not two spaces, should be left after periods at the ends of sentences (both in manuscript and in final, published form).

The letter writer is not alone in continuing to observe the two-spaces-after-a-period rule, as most editors would attest.

Cynthia L. Course, CPA
Wrightstown, N.J.