There is no space before a punctuation mark!

[NaeRolls]

Why do some people do this?

Example: My name is NaeRolls and I am in my forties .

It looks like a speck on the screen and I want to wipe it off!

And while I'm being petty, why do people sign off emails with 'Kind Regards'? It's not a heading. It should be 'Kind regards'.

And not 'Warm regards' either, which puts me in mind of sitting in some kind of yucky, warm, wet substance.

Lastly: 'Expecially'. I have a friend who is an educated professional who says this. I want to tell her so that she stops embarrassing herself in front of others, but I think she'll be mortified and I don't want to offend her 😅

I format and sub magazines and books etc at a publishing company and have to get rid of all the sodding extra spaces people use after a full stop in order to fit things on the page properly. Fortunately Find and Replace exists for this in Word and the like. But honestly people - stop it.

OMG, the sodding eclipses addicts. I cannot stand that annoying stream-of-consciousness style.

I know the usual example of why punctuation kills is "Let's eat Grandma" (as opposed to "Let's eat, Grandma") but actually I think it's just as likely to be a pedant in the throes of a murderous rage having just read yet another post or email which...is punctuated... like...this...

Yes, it used to be two spaces, I'm not sure why. It changed to one quite a while back, again, I'm not sure why. I think two spaces looks weird now.

Yes that was the rule! Over time it's changed to one space. I'm a copy editor and I sometimes edit text where the author has followed this convention. I use auto search and replace to change them all to one space 😉

Ah, I'd forgotten that sometimes happens with predictive text. Maybe I shouldn't be so hasty to judge then! Thanks for pointing this out.

The ellipses make me think there are ... mysterious ... things ... being left ... unsaid .... But that's usually not the case. I don't know why people do this.

Good point. In UK English I usually see the en-rule/en-dash with a space on either side. But those nutty Americans prefer an em-rule with no space! I can't do it on my phone so will use hyphens. The en-rule with spaces looks like this --

The em-rule looks like this ---

I'm South African, actually. But we do use mainly UK English, so I take your point.

There's something very satisfying about nuking all the extra spaces with find and replace all.

I think this may be one of the reasons, yes. But to be fair, the comma is one of the more difficult punctuation marks to get right. I really should look up the actual rules for comma usage, if they exist. I just use them where I would normally pause in speech.

@ChocolateGanache I use a single space after a full stop because I look for accidental double-spaces between words. If there were two spaces after each full stop,it would take much longer.

Editedto apologize for not clearing the quote.

My pet hate is One. Word. Sentences.

Those are so annoying.

I also hate one-line paragraphs.

Like this.

LinkedIn lunatics write their posts this way.

To create impact.

(I think.)

One of our very senior directors says this. She's an intelligent woman and it drives me mad 🤦

They annoy me too.

They look like a shit haiku.

At least, I think so.

@NaeRolls . I agree about the one sentence paragraphs.

Literally makes me roll my eyes, unless it adds something to the sentence.

You. Can't. Have. A. One. Word. Sentence.

Jeremy fell.
Jane laughed.
Spot barked.

Yes.
You can.

I have a colleague at work whose draft emails I have to edit and/or approve and send. If anyone has a techie tip for getting rid of all the spaces before punctuation marks that his emails are littered with, I would be eternally grateful 😵‍💫

@upinaballoon , are you new to MN?

'No.' is a complete sentence.

@oviraptor21 , Find and replace in a text editor?

No, I'm not new to Mumsnet.

How would you define a sentence? I thought that a sentence must have a subject and a verb, so two words can constitute a sentence.

@upinaballoon , it doesn't need to contain a subject and a verb if those are implied.

'are you new to MN?' was meant light-heartedly, but had you replied 'No.', it would have been a whole sentence because in that context you would have meant 'No, I'm not new to Mumsnet.'

I am trying to wean myself off two spaces after a full stop but I tend to forget so it’s very inconsistent.

My own niggle is leaving spaces either slide of a forward slash. For example writing they / them instead of they/them. It’s fairly common where I work and always irritating.

@WeirdyBeardyMarrowBabyLady , I agree with you.

Why is it that the posters claiming to be teachers create posts that have errors in them? I appreciate that typos happen, but these are not typos, they are plurals with 's and should ofs.