6 Nov
2006
6 Nov
'06
6:56 p.m.
Indeed. Actually, I don't think you actually do that in any language except Emacs (and perhaps LaTeX).
And Emacs and LaTeX are both products of US programmers, right? Richard Stallman and Leslie Lamport (and LaTeX based on Donald Knuth's TeX, another American). Could just be that's how they were taught...
AFAIK LaTeX ignores any white space greater than one single " "?!
Dan