That’s a bit unfair on Fowler’s Modern English Usage, it’s much more descriptive than prescriptive. Rather take aim at what (IIRC, correctly) Stephen King called “that Nazi little book” Strunck and White which is prescriptive, scolding, and wrong.
Lissen Y’all, DOUBLE SPACING IS A HERITAGE, NOT A MISTAKE! I learned it in the trenches. Microsoft Word 2003, baby. Times New Roman. 12 pt. font. Papers due by midnight.
You want me to unlearn years of pure muscle memory? Ugggggh.
I don’t double space to be fancy. I double space because I respect the period. I give her room to breathe. I honor her pause. I grew up in a time when punctuation was sacred and grammar still had elders.
But fiiiiiiine. I love my editors. Especially copy editors. So, I’ll stop.
I’ll conform to your modern, minimalist, space-deprived-ass dystopia. Just know this: somewhere, deep in my soul that my thumb is STILL pressing the space bar twice.