Padding

Used in the context of writing school/uni/other misc malarkey essays.
When your teacher gives you a stupid topic to write about, or one of which you can write, say, only 200 words for what the teacher believes should be an 800 word essay, what do you do?

You pad.
It's the stuff between the words, that turns a 100 word draft into a 1500 word essay. It keeps the teachers happy and doesn't require much effort.

For instance:

'He said the mars bar tasted great.'
...could be turned into something like:
'The candy confectionary known as a "mars bar", which is manufactured by Mars Inc., a subsidiary of Effem Foods, was consumed by smokngoat and then described by the same smokngoat as tasting great, which is fairly likely under the circumstances.'

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Property

padding

Values

<length>, <percentage>

Initial

not defined for shorthand properties

Inherited

no

The 'padding' property is a shorthand property for setting 'padding-top', 'padding-right', 'padding-bottom' and 'padding-left' at the same place in the style sheet.

If four values are specified they apply to top, right, bottom and left respectively. If there is only one value, it applies to all sides, if there are two or three, the missing values are taken from the opposite side.

The surface of the padding area is set with the 'background' property:

      H1 { 
      background: white; 
      padding: 1em 2em;
      } 

The example above sets a '1em' padding vertically ('padding-top' and 'padding-bottom') and a '2em' padding horizontally ('padding-right' and 'padding-left'). The 'em' unit is relative to the element's font size: '1em' is equal to the size of the font in use.

Padding values cannot be negative.

Pad"ding, n.

1.

The act or process of making a pad or of inserting stuffing.

2.

The material with which anything is padded.

3.

Material of inferior value, serving to extend a book, essay, etc.

London Sat. Rev.

4. Calico Printing

The uniform impregnation of cloth with a mordant.

 

© Webster 1913.