I am attempting to clean away any one or two letter words from a text passage. This was my first thought

```
gsub(" [a-zA-Z]{1,2} ", " ", "a ab abc B BB BBB")
[1] "a aaa BB BBBB"

```

I can see how the "a" is not replaced as it does not lead with a space and I can see how the "BB" is not replaced as the space it leads with has already been grabbed by the " B ".