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.

It certainly doesn't make it clearer if everyone invents their own punctuation variations.

Incredibly irritating

Nearly as bad as no paragraphs

Are we talking about a space between the end of a word then a question mark or exclamation mark ? Like this ? Also two spaces after a full stop ? This was taught back in the day when learning to type with Pitman.

Why would anyone bother about whether a text has an additional space in it? Even for pedant's corner this is rather sad.

I don't see it as a punctuation variation, just a spacing variation.

I also double space before the next sentence so I probably will be going to hell.

Ah, thank you. A recognised variation then ? Maybe I won't be going to hell 😉

In French, it is correct to leave a space before most punctuation marks.
I found it odd for many years but now I prefer it and find myself doing it in English, (and having to correct myself !)

Possibly by today's standards. But this was taught as the correct way to do things, albeit many years ago. See below.

Why do you have to correct yourself ? As a pp has said it was taught and was acceptable.

Please would you give me a lesson on this? If I say, "My going to Paris was a terrible mistake." would 'my' be the possessive pronoun before the gerund 'going'?
I have left two spaces between sentences. My e-mail programme would just get rid of one of the spaces as soon as I pressed 'Send'. I wonder what will happen here.

I do think it's an older person thing. I used to send emails out which volunteers had drafted and had two older people who put spaces before every punctuation mark. Such a time waster eliminating all the spaces but I refused to let an email under my name go out with the spaces still there.

I was taught to leave a space after a full stop. Like so

People have always done it, looks weird.