On 8/9/21, G. Branden Robinson <g.branden.robin...@gmail.com> wrote: > > \v'-.5'\s-4\&2\s0\v'.5' > > The use of \&, unnecessary here as far as I know, suggests to me that > someone got burned by the magic syntax of the \s escape sequence.
The \& is unnecessary for correct machine parsing, but it surely aids human eyes, which could otherwise potentially misread \s-42. A handful of users may have memorized the cutoffs for \s's magic, but others would have to consult another manual to check. The \& makes it immediately clear the "2" is not part of the "\s" escape. On 8/9/21, Robert Goulding <robert.d.gouldin...@nd.edu> wrote: > -me macros: I have always disliked the way that that macro set added line > spacing to accommodate the footnote marker. Maybe that was necessary in > older output devices; but it looks very ugly in modern laser > printed output. That's not -me's only ugliness based on historical limitations. One of my "favorites" is its \*v diacritical mark, designed to produce a ˇ (caron; Unicode U+02C7, or U+030C in its combining form) -- which \*v simulates with a raised, reduced-size letter v. Once upon a time, I'm sure that was the best solution available. In modern output it looks awful. (Luckily, modern troff provides better ways of specifying Unicode characters, so -me users are no longer obligated to use \*v, so it's not really worth fixing.)
