On 7/31/20, Peter Schaffter <[email protected]> wrote:
> Surely the most useful and accurate way to describe \& is "a
> zero-width, non-printing character."
Agreed. A patch that changes the wording to just that is attached.
The term in groff(7), "non-printable, zero-width glyph," was already
close, but I changed it as well anyway, mostly because \& acts more
like an input character (affecting how input is interpreted) than an
output glyph.
diff --git a/doc/groff.texi b/doc/groff.texi
index 55369e69..0ea1e7bb 100644
--- a/doc/groff.texi
+++ b/doc/groff.texi
@@ -5141,16 +5141,16 @@ assigning an empty macro to it.
@xref{Blank Line Traps}.
-@cindex zero width space character (@code{\&})
-@cindex character, zero width space (@code{\&})
-@cindex space character, zero width (@code{\&})
+@cindex zero-width non-printing character (@code{\&})
+@cindex character, zero-width non-printing (@code{\&})
+@cindex non-printing character, zero-width (@code{\&})
@cindex @code{\&}, escaping control characters
To begin a line with a control character without it being interpreted,
-precede it with @code{\&}. This represents a zero width space, which
-means it does not affect the output.
+precede it with @code{\&}. This represents a zero-width, non-printing
+character, which means it does not affect the output.
In most cases the period is used as a control character. Several
-requests cause a break implicitly; using the single quote control
+requests cause a break implicitly; using the single-quote control
character prevents this.
@Defreg {.br}
@@ -7812,8 +7812,8 @@ set with the @code{shc} request.
@item
@cindex @code{\&}, and translations
The pair @samp{@var{c}\&} (this is an arbitrary character@tie{}@var{c}
-followed by the zero width space character) maps this character to
-nothing.
+followed by the zero-width, non-printing character) maps this character
+to nothing.
@Example
.tr a\&
@@ -9881,9 +9881,9 @@ enable pairwise kerning, otherwise disable it. The read-only number
register @code{.kern} is set to@tie{}1 if pairwise kerning is enabled,
0@tie{}otherwise.
-@cindex zero width space character (@code{\&})
-@cindex character, zero width space (@code{\&})
-@cindex space character, zero width (@code{\&})
+@cindex zero-width non-printing character (@code{\&})
+@cindex character, zero-width non-printing (@code{\&})
+@cindex non-printing character, zero-width (@code{\&})
If the font description file contains pairwise kerning information,
glyphs from that font are kerned. Kerning between two glyphs can be
inhibited by placing @code{\&} between them: @samp{V\&A}.
@@ -11920,9 +11920,9 @@ The optional second parameter@tie{}@var{g} is a glyph to draw the line
with. If this second argument is not specified, @code{gtroff} uses the
underscore glyph, @code{\[ru]}.
-@cindex zero width space character (@code{\&})
-@cindex character, zero width space (@code{\&})
-@cindex space character, zero width (@code{\&})
+@cindex zero-width non-printing character (@code{\&})
+@cindex character, zero-width non-printing (@code{\&})
+@cindex non-printing character, zero-width (@code{\&})
To separate the two arguments (to prevent @code{gtroff} from
interpreting a drawing glyph as a scaling indicator if the glyph is
represented by a single character) use @code{\&}.
diff --git a/man/groff.7.man b/man/groff.7.man
index b16f8ad2..c5c8706c 100644
--- a/man/groff.7.man
+++ b/man/groff.7.man
@@ -3078,7 +3078,7 @@ Digit-width unbreakable space.
.
.TP
.ESC &
-Non-printable, zero-width glyph.
+Non-printing, zero-width character.
.
.TP
.ESC )
