Here in New Zealand I have noticed several instances of commas placed before the next clause ,not after the preceding one. At first I thought it was someone who was not well educated, careless ,or confused. Since then I have seen it in the writing of any number of people.
Is this an alternative rule? An archaic usage? Regional?
I haven't seen it. But if it is that sudden and that consistent, I guess it is related to technology. Maybe there is a technology product or app that automatically inserts a space and, rather than removing the space to insert the comma, people are leaving the space before the comma and omitting the space after.
Are you seeing a space before other punctuation ,too ? That would be a clue .
Could this be a common touch-typing error, like spelling the definite article "hte", rather than something done deliberately?
Hmm. Interesting options. I have to think about - and further notice - what sort of medium they're using.
I think I've seen this on Usenet, and it turned out that the convention in French is to put space before punctuation like commas and periods instead of after. Or maybe it had something to do with parentheses.