Re: GNU eqn clarifications and reforms (was: EQN - special words)

[Damian McGuckin]

In the original 'eqn' Users Guide, the word 'thing' is used to refer, I 
believe, to any sequence of characters that does not include a separator 
(blank, newline, '~', '^', '{' or '}' ) or punctuation or mathematical 
symbol. It can also mean a sequence of characters that incorrectly does 
not include these, e.g.

        (x sup 2)

The 2) is NOT a thing. It is two separate things where there is a missing
seperator because of a user error.

How should I define 'thing' before I start talking about it?

Brian got away without defining a 'thing' back in the 70s. There were 18 
uses of thing, or which 11 were the strict thing.

I definitely do not have the moral authority to do the same in 2023 in my 
revamp. I have 17 mentions of thing - all 17 are strict. I deliberately 
made sure I used other phrases to avoid the word thing. For example, I say 
"this is more complicated" instead of say "things are more complicated".

But I am still missing that definition.

Suggestions - Damian