On Tue Dec 3, 2024 at 3:12 PM CET, Douglas McIlroy wrote: > >> I invented .ne 55 years ago and have never heard a complaint about its > >> design before. It is not a conditional .bp, because that would case a > >> line break, which .ne never does, nor should. > > > I know it does not behave like a conditional `bp` (that was my > > entire argument, after all). I have yet to see any explanation > > of the rationale behind that behavior, though. > > Ah, it seems you missed one intended use of .ne: to forestall widows. > Such a .ne will appear in the middle of a paragraph, possibly even in > the middle of a sentence. If it caused a line break, it would create a > false paragraph. > > Doug
I see, that's interesting. I have indeed never heard about such a use case. I assume it is meant only for manual use, though? Or is there a way of using `ne` to prevent widows automatically? So far I haven't found a simple way of doing that. ~ onf
