docs: def _create_regex_pattern_add_optional_spaces_to_word_characters(word):
      r"""Add the regex special characters (\s*) to allow optional spaces.
  
      :param word: (string) the word to be inserted into a regex pattern.
      :return: (string) the regex pattern for that word with optional spaces
                        between all of its characters.
      """
      new_word = u""
      for ch in word:
          if ch.isspace():
              new_word += ch
          else:
              new_word += ch + r'\s*'
      return new_word