using Webmaster Mode to merely append a 'test' class to the markup in the template resulted in the following:
HTML Code:
<div class="category-description test">Catering Supplies</div>
clearly not what I had in mind.
looking at it in vim, positioning the cursor over the space, and pressing 'ga' gives me the result that the character under the cursor is not an ASCII 32 (space) but in fact a unicode no-break space Hex 00a0
http://www.fileformat.info/info/unicode/char/00a0/index.htm
in addition to the fact that my spacebar was autoconverted without my specific intent to type such a character, it would also appear that I am UNABLE to copy an EXISTING space character from elsewhere on that very edit block and PASTE it in where I want it. The window refuses utterly to even copy the space character -- i have to select surrounding characters and then delete them from around the space I want after I paste it.