The problem is with the stream of alphanumeric symbols. Most languages treat sqrtx as a single token, but asciimath treats it as two (sqrt and x) if you put a s

The problem is with the stream of alphanumeric symbols. Most languages treat sqrtx as a single token, but asciimath treats it as two (sqrt and x) if you put a symbol in between them (sqrt+x) most languages treats it as three tokens (sqrt, +, x) and asciimath is no different. asciimath’s choice here is to make whitespace (sometimes) optional between two subsequent alphanumeric tokens, and it is a rather odd choice. I‘m not sure which other language (markup or otherwise) does it this way.