This bug is a regression from the emacs-25 branch build. Here is how to reproduce this bug in the master build in an emacs -Q session (and also to verify that this bug is not present in emacs-25 branch build): 1. Launch emacs -Q 2. Type "(setq a " in the *scratch* buffer In *master* build, you see this: http://i.imgur.com/YwBybGU.png Note that the SYM argument is not highlighted (made bold). Whereas this is what I see on the *emacs-25* branch after the same steps above: http://i.imgur.com/DveB1le.png Note that this time, the correct argument is seen in bold face in the eldoc hint. In GNU Emacs 25.1.50.3 (x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu, GTK+ Version 2.24.23) of 2016-07-05 built on Repository revision: a18baf565e872759de9281c3488c3981d19a15e1 Windowing system distributor 'The X.Org Foundation', version 11.0.60900000 System Description: Red Hat Enterprise Linux Workstation release 6.6 (Santiago) Recent messages: For information about GNU Emacs and the GNU system, type C-h C-a. Configured using: 'configure --with-modules --prefix=/home/kmodi/usr_local/apps/6/emacs/master 'CPPFLAGS=-fgnu89-inline -I/home/kmodi/usr_local/6/include -I/usr/include/freetype2 -I/usr/include' 'CFLAGS=-ggdb3 -O0' 'CXXFLAGS=-ggdb3 -O0' 'LDFLAGS=-L/home/kmodi/usr_local/6/lib -L/home/kmodi/usr_local/6/lib64 -ggdb3' PKG_CONFIG_PATH=/home/kmodi/usr_local/6/lib/pkgconfig:/home/kmodi/usr_local/6/lib64/pkgconfig:/cad/adi/apps/gnu/linux/x86_64/6/lib/pkgconfig:/cad/adi/apps/gnu/linux/x86_64/6/lib64/pkgconfig:/usr/lib/pkgconfig:/usr/lib64/pkgconfig:/usr/share/pkgconfig:/lib/pkgconfig:/lib64/pkgconfig' Configured features: XPM JPEG TIFF GIF PNG RSVG IMAGEMAGICK SOUND GPM DBUS GCONF GSETTINGS NOTIFY ACL LIBSELINUX GNUTLS LIBXML2 FREETYPE LIBOTF XFT ZLIB TOOLKIT_SCROLL_BARS GTK2 X11 MODULES Important settings: value of $LANG: en_US.UTF-8 value of $XMODIFIERS: @im=none locale-coding-system: utf-8-unix Major mode: Lisp Interaction Minor modes in effect: tooltip-mode: t global-eldoc-mode: t electric-indent-mode: t mouse-wheel-mode: t tool-bar-mode: t menu-bar-mode: t file-name-shadow-mode: t global-font-lock-mode: t font-lock-mode: t blink-cursor-mode: t auto-composition-mode: t auto-encryption-mode: t auto-compression-mode: t line-number-mode: t transient-mark-mode: t Load-path shadows: None found. Features: (shadow sort mail-extr emacsbug message puny seq byte-opt gv bytecomp byte-compile cl-extra help-mode cconv cl-loaddefs pcase cl-lib dired dired-loaddefs format-spec rfc822 mml easymenu mml-sec password-cache epa derived epg epg-config gnus-util rmail rmail-loaddefs mm-decode mm-bodies mm-encode mail-parse rfc2231 mailabbrev gmm-utils mailheader sendmail rfc2047 rfc2045 ietf-drums mm-util mail-prsvr mail-utils time-date mule-util tooltip eldoc electric uniquify ediff-hook vc-hooks lisp-float-type mwheel term/x-win x-win term/common-win x-dnd tool-bar dnd fontset image regexp-opt fringe tabulated-list newcomment elisp-mode lisp-mode prog-mode register page menu-bar rfn-eshadow timer select scroll-bar mouse jit-lock font-lock syntax facemenu font-core term/tty-colors frame cl-generic cham georgian utf-8-lang misc-lang vietnamese tibetan thai tai-viet lao korean japanese eucjp-ms cp51932 hebrew greek romanian slovak czech european ethiopic indian cyrillic chinese charscript case-table epa-hook jka-cmpr-hook help simple abbrev obarray minibuffer cl-preloaded nadvice loaddefs button faces cus-face macroexp files text-properties overlay sha1 md5 base64 format env code-pages mule custom widget hashtable-print-readable backquote dbusbind inotify dynamic-setting system-font-setting font-render-setting move-toolbar gtk x-toolkit x multi-tty make-network-process emacs) Memory information: ((conses 16 98021 6511) (symbols 48 21150 0) (miscs 40 43 83) (strings 32 17964 4480) (string-bytes 1 590672) (vectors 16 14230) (vector-slots 8 465616 5414) (floats 8 187 88) (intervals 56 238 0) (buffers 976 11) (heap 1024 22229 700)) -- -- Kaushal Modi