diff --git a/django/utils/html.py b/django/utils/html.py
index d89067106e590..9e239cad1f59c 100644
--- a/django/utils/html.py
+++ b/django/utils/html.py
@@ -38,8 +38,8 @@ def strip_tags(value):
     return re.sub(r'<[^>]*?>', '', value)
 
 def strip_spaces_between_tags(value):
-    "Returns the given HTML with spaces between tags stripped"
-    return re.sub(r'>\s+<', '><', value)
+    "Returns the given HTML with spaces between tags normalized to a single space"
+    return re.sub(r'>\s+<', '> <', value)
 
 def strip_entities(value):
     "Returns the given HTML with all entities (&something;) stripped"
diff --git a/docs/templates.txt b/docs/templates.txt
index 0fbe1f6ae8fd5..3dafb068c3ec1 100644
--- a/docs/templates.txt
+++ b/docs/templates.txt
@@ -668,7 +668,8 @@ spaceless
 
 **New in Django development version.**
 
-Strips whitespace between HTML tags. This includes tab characters and newlines.
+Normalizes whitespace between HTML tags to a single space. This includes tab
+characters and newlines.
 
 Example usage::
 
@@ -680,9 +681,9 @@ Example usage::
 
 This example would return this HTML::
 
-    <p><a href="foo/">Foo</a></p>
+    <p> <a href="foo/">Foo</a> </p>
 
-Only space between *tags* is stripped -- not space between tags and text. In
+Only space between *tags* is normalized -- not space between tags and text. In
 this example, the space around ``Hello`` won't be stripped::
 
     {% spaceless %}