Why are more people putting spaces before punctuation when typing?

[dmell13]

Has anyone else seen a lot of people's typing/texting like this with a space before the punctuation? I'm seeing it more and more and don't know where its come from?

e.g. Ok , i'll meet you in town on Saturday . 😧
Why ?

You're right, thanks for that. I think it could well be an affectation!

I’ve seen it mostly with Eastern Europeans at work, so usually a second language. I wonder if it’s how they are taught, or maybe they are told the comma is a pause and so add a space?

You got me!

But ‘clealy’? OK, I’m going to stop now😅😅

As with many things ending up in Pedants' Corner, it's probably because they are either ignorant, their device does it and they don't notice, or that they are just plain stupid.

I assume so, but cannot answer for everyone. On my phone, it seems to do it more if I am putting a question mark or exclamation mark, but removes the space when I use a full stop. As someone else said, it is poor programming.

Indeed - 'Pedants' corner' but 'Climate Change' (for example). Bonkers!

Older books in English sometimes have spaces before question marks and exclamation marks.

Typesetting conventions have changed over the years so you don’t see these gaps in well-edited work now, but they were certainly used in the past, to some extent at least.

Ha!
I expect very few people know what the gerund is.

My phone does the above with the extra g too!

Mine sometimes does take out the space, but not always.

If I hit the space button twice - my iPad auto inserts a full stop itself in the gap.

Also, following the (ingrained) principles of military electronic signal writing training from decades ago, the instruction at that time was for specific spacing, one space after a comma, two spaces after a full stop. (I come unstuck).

Also in my case, the iPad freezes and glitches - what I’ve actually typed is sometimes appearing on screen as randomised nonsensical letters.