Quote:
Originally Posted by theducks
Thanks for adding Clarity. 
I was scratching my Head, "But there were spaces allowed in "Unix" file names when I used them it the 1980's, why would Linux 'remove' them? "
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Bash man page says the following:
A simple command is a sequence of optional variable assignments followed by blank-separated words and redirections, and terminated by a control operator. The first word specifies the command to be executed, and is passed as argument zero. The remaining words are passed as arguments to the invoked command.
With the following definitions:
blank A space or tab.
word A sequence of characters considered as a single unit by the
shell. Also known as a token.
metacharacter
A character that, when unquoted, separates words. One of the
following: | & ; ( ) < > space tab
Thus a space is a metacharacter with special powers and not just a standard character. It requires special handling.
Dale