As a `\' is not special inside a character alternative, it can never remove the special meaning of `-' or `]'. So you should not quote these characters when they have no special meaning either. This would not clarify anything, since backslashes can legitimately precede these characters where they _have_ special meaning, as in `[^\]' (`"[^\\]"' for Lisp string syntax), which matches any single character except a backslash. `[^\]' or `"[^\\]"' , which is right ? what is Lisp string syntax for ? thanks