[net.text] ugly vulgarity of troff/ditroff .am, .de, etc. and -me macros

padpowell@wateng.UUCP (05/25/84)

In the macro define/append requests .de, .am "input lines are copied
in copy mode until the definition is terminated with a line beginning
with '.yy', whereupon the macro 'yy' is called."

NOTE the following bad things:
Do not create macros of the form-
.de XX
.	(x \\$1
\\$2
.	)x

^ Note the tabs after the periods.

The index macro .(x is looking for a "close" of the form .)x,
and instead it sees ".<tab>)x", and fails to "close".  Needless to say,
this will cause problems, as the rest of your text is gobbled up by
the index entry.

Patrick ("Would you believe this?") Powell