bug#20924: 25.0.50; (elisp) `Sticky Properties`

[Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org>]

> Date: Sun, 28 Jun 2015 18:47:28 -0700 (PDT)
> From: Drew Adams <drew.adams@oracle.com>
> 
> The first sentence is misleading:
> 
>   Self-inserting characters normally take on the same properties as the
>   preceding character.
> 
> Is it about the characters themselves or about self-insertion of
> those characters?

The latter, because of the plural tense.  "Self-inserting characters"
is a shorthand for "characters bound to a command that just inserts
the character which invoked it".

> The rest of the node says, for example, that `insert' inserts without
> inheritance.  Doesn't that mean that if you pass a string of
> self-inserting chars to `insert' then they will not inherit from the
> char before the insertion?

No.  According to my clarification above, there's no such thing as "a
string of self-inserting characters", only "a string of characters".
Any character can be inserted by an explicit call to 'insert'.

I guess the confusion here is between 'insert' the name of a primitive
and "insert" as part of "self-inserting", where "insert" is used in
its everyday meaning.  I see no other unclear issues here.

> It would be clearer to just say that: they inherit when they are
> self-inserted.

We cannot "self-insert" a character, so saying that would be a
mistake.