It might be to accommodate accented characters, try putting Ä into the first <p>
, the extra space helps accommodate the accent. That said, I'm not 100% convinced that is the definitive reason.
You can always specifically target the first line of a <p>
element to reduce it using:
p::first-line {
line-height: 0.8em;
}
Though granted, that doesnt solve the 'why' issue.