Exotic spaces
OGHAM SPACE MARK (U+1680)
The word separator of the Ogham script. Unusually for a space, it is drawn as a short line in most Ogham fonts, and as blank in everything else.
- Codepoint
U+1680- Also written as
u1680\u1680 - Category
- Exotic spaces
- Removed by default
- No
- Governing option
- Spaces
-s - Can be load-bearing
- No
Copy and paste U+1680
To copy and paste OGHAM SPACE MARK (U+1680), press the button: the character itself goes to your clipboard, and Ctrl+V (Cmd+V on a Mac) pastes it anywhere you can type.
Where it comes from
Ogham text, and lists of "unusual whitespace characters" used by people testing what a validator accepts.
Why it matters
It is classified as a space separator, so `\s` matches it and `trim()` in many languages removes it, but plenty of validators use an explicit ASCII whitespace list and let it straight through.
Before and after
A space from a script last used in the sixth century, in the middle of ASCII.
The character is shown as a labelled chip so you can see where it sits. In your text it draws nothing at all.
When it is legitimate
In Ogham text, where it is the space between words.
How to remove it
Turn on Spaces (`-s`); it becomes an ordinary space.
Working in a file rather than a paste? The document report for .docx, .odt and .html finds it inside the file, together with hidden runs and tracked changes, without you having to open it. If the question is what the rest of the writing does rather than what this one character does, measure sentence-length variation and see where each habit sits, with no score and no claim about who wrote the text.
Is it an AI watermark?
Not a watermark
No. An Ogham script character. In modern text it is a curiosity or a probe of what a form will accept.
No connection to machine-generated text. It comes from software, from a keyboard, or from a person.
Questions
Is it really invisible?
In an Ogham font it draws a line, because Ogham is written along a stem. In every other font you get blank space.
Does `\s` match it?
In Unicode-aware regular expressions, yes. In byte-oriented or ASCII-only ones, no, which is where the surprises come from.
Check your own text
Paste anything into the cleaner to see every hidden character it contains, with position, codepoint and what happens to each one. Nothing is uploaded.
Check your own textClean it in Chrome as you pasteClean it on your Mac with one keystrokeAll characters