I often (mostly?) just type text emoticons into messages. Spectrum attempts to automatically replace those with emoji but usually leaves behind a few characters. Note: in examples below I have added a space in the middle and quotes around the typed emoticon to prevent automatic replacement. Remove the quotes and spaces to see what I really type. For example, if I type ": )" then it tries to replace it with the emoji smiley :slightly_smiling_face:. The smiley appears but often (not always) the right parentheses is left behind and shows up right after the emoji like this: :slightly_smiling_face:). Similar issues exist for other emoticon styles: ": - )" -> :slightly_smiling_face:-) ": - (" -> :disappointed:-( Oddly, ": (" seems to always work with a complete replacement.