Lilypond is not aligning lyrics correctly

Question

I was writing sheet music consisting of melody, chords and lyrics. To my surprise, the lyrics weren't aligned correctly under the notes. The file looked like correct Lilypond source code:

global = {
    \time 3/4
    \partial 4
}

theChords = \chordmode {
    c4 | c2. | a2:m e4 | a2:m d4 | g2
}

melody = \relative c'' {
    g8.( e16) | c4 e g | c2 e8. d16 | c4 e, fis | g2
}

theLyrics = \lyricmode {
    O say can you see, by the dawn's ear -- ly light
}

\score {
    \new ChoirStaff <<
        \new ChordNames {
            \global \theChords
        }
        \new Staff = "Melody" <<
            \new Voice = "Melody" {
                \global \melody
            }
        >>
        \new Lyrics \lyricsto "Melody" {
            \theLyrics
        }
    >>
}

However, it produced the following output:

Answer 1

It turns out the Word document I copied the lyrics from contained some non-breaking spaces; these don't stand out in the Lilypond editor* but the compiler doesn't recognize them as word separators. It sees the entirety of "O say can you see" as a single syllable.

When I replaced all non-standard spaces with regular ones, the lyrics were correctly aligned again.

*_{: or for that matter, most text editors. After posting this question, I realized the Stack Exchange editor (or perhaps my browser) automatically converts them to regular spaces. I've uploaded the file to Google Drive, that seems to preserve them and you can download it here. Trust me, the problem is real, and it cost me quite some time to figure out...}