Re: A clarification on the Emacs Tutorial

[Perry Smith <pedzsan@gmail.com>]

On Jul 22, 2011, at 12:50 PM, Sivaram Neelakantan wrote:

> So, I had some free time and was going through the tutorial and came
> to this part
> 
> Note that a single C-k kills the contents of the line, and a second
> C-k kills the line itself, and makes all the other lines move up.  C-k
> treats a numeric argument specially: it kills that many lines AND
> their contents.  This is not mere repetition.  C-u 2 C-k kills two
> lines and their newlines; typing C-k twice would not do that.
> 
> Right, I *know* this,OK?  I understand this perfectly but could you
> tell me what's that sentence "This is not mere repetition" for?  I
> can't see what that sentence is trying to say in context.  If I remove
> that sentence it makes perfect sense but maddeningly I can't figure
> what that sentence is trying to convey.
> 
> Anyone?

I believe the author with that sentence is mostly trying to say "hey!
look!. this might not be what you are expecting".  I think an English
prof (or teacher) would hammer that the "this" refers to something
outside of the sentence which is weak and in fact does not reference
anything concrete.  But, a creative writing prof would counter that it
is a deliberate attempt to pause the reader.

The gist is summarized with the last compound sentence.

HTH
pedz