css selectors - Why are spaces used to separate things in css

Question

Here is something in a wordpress stylesheet that I don't understand:

blockquote cite,
blockquote em,
blockquote i {
font-style: normal;
}

what does the space between blockquote and cite do? I understand if they are separated by a comma, then both blockquote and cite will have "font-style: normal;" now they are separated by space, does this mean if a blockquote tag is embedded into a cite tag it will get "font-style: normal;"?

Thank you.

Answer 1

The space is known as the descendant combinator. blockquote cite selects any cite element within a blockquote element. Likewise for blockquote em and blockquote i.

In other words, it's not "if a blockquote tag is embedded into a cite tag", it's the other way around (besides, you can't place blockquotes in cites in the first place).

As you note, commas group selector sequences into the same rule.