Re: BPCHAR description in 8.3. Character Types is misleading and incomplete

Yeah, your original conclusion this couldn’t be labeled blank-padded seems to have drawn this confusion.  If padding is indeed noun-like and not verb-like then calling it blank-padded works ok.  The clarifying text is then just fine as-is: the comment about any included spaces are semantically insignificant ties back to calling those spaces “padding” and thus the type itself remains “blank-padded” in both the and N and non-N cases.  There isn’t a way to make “trimmed” a noun here but those spaces are not actually removed/trimmed away.

In short, I would change trimmed to padded in the table.

I’d also add “padding” here just to actually use the word in its noun form.

…but trailing spaces are [stored as] semantically insignificant [padding].

(I thought also about trying to remove the phrase “semantically [in]significant” altogether but at the moment would rather not touch the following paragraph.)

If we really have to drive the point home I'd also add a footnote marker to “blank-padded” and then say in the footnote text (right below the table):

A blank-padded value contains zero or more trailing spaces which are ignored for comparison purposes.  These spaces are also called “semantically insignificant”.

David J.