-Unless specifically escaped, consecutive blocks of whitespace are pruned
-from input. These are later re-added, if applicable, by a front-end
-utility such as
-.Xr mandoc 1 .
-.
-.
-.Ss Dates
-The
-.Sx \&TH
-macro is the only
-.Nm
-macro that requires a date. The form for this date is the ISO-8601
-standard
-.Cm YYYY-MM-DD .
-.
-.
+Whitespace consists of the space character.
+In free-form lines, whitespace is preserved within a line; unescaped
+trailing spaces are stripped from input (unless in a literal context).
+Blank free-form lines, which may include spaces, are permitted and
+rendered as an empty line.
+.Pp
+In macro lines, whitespace delimits arguments and is discarded.
+If arguments are quoted, whitespace within the quotes is retained.