This bug is a regression from the emacs-25 branch build.
Here is how to reproduce this bug in the master build in an emacs -Q session (and also to verify that this bug is not present in emacs-25 branch build):
1. Launch emacs -Q
2. Type "(setq a " in the *scratch* buffer
Note that the SYM argument is not highlighted (made bold).
Note that this time, the correct argument is seen in bold face in the eldoc hint.
In GNU Emacs 25.1.50.3 (x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu, GTK+ Version 2.24.23)
of 2016-07-05 built on
Repository revision: a18baf565e872759de9281c3488c3981d19a15e1
Windowing system distributor 'The X.Org Foundation', version 11.0.60900000
System Description: Red Hat Enterprise Linux Workstation release 6.6 (Santiago)
Recent messages:
For information about GNU Emacs and the GNU system, type C-h C-a.
Configured using:
'configure --with-modules
--prefix=/home/kmodi/usr_local/apps/6/emacs/master
'CPPFLAGS=-fgnu89-inline -I/home/kmodi/usr_local/6/include
-I/usr/include/freetype2 -I/usr/include' 'CFLAGS=-ggdb3 -O0'
'CXXFLAGS=-ggdb3 -O0' 'LDFLAGS=-L/home/kmodi/usr_local/6/lib
-L/home/kmodi/usr_local/6/lib64 -ggdb3'
PKG_CONFIG_PATH=/home/kmodi/usr_local/6/lib/pkgconfig:/home/kmodi/usr_local/6/lib64/pkgconfig:/cad/adi/apps/gnu/linux/x86_64/6/lib/pkgconfig:/cad/adi/apps/gnu/linux/x86_64/6/lib64/pkgconfig:/usr/lib/pkgconfig:/usr/lib64/pkgconfig:/usr/share/pkgconfig:/lib/pkgconfig:/lib64/pkgconfig'
Configured features:
XPM JPEG TIFF GIF PNG RSVG IMAGEMAGICK SOUND GPM DBUS GCONF GSETTINGS
NOTIFY ACL LIBSELINUX GNUTLS LIBXML2 FREETYPE LIBOTF XFT ZLIB
TOOLKIT_SCROLL_BARS GTK2 X11 MODULES
Important settings:
value of $LANG: en_US.UTF-8
value of $XMODIFIERS: @im=none
locale-coding-system: utf-8-unix
Major mode: Lisp Interaction
Minor modes in effect:
tooltip-mode: t
global-eldoc-mode: t
electric-indent-mode: t
mouse-wheel-mode: t
tool-bar-mode: t
menu-bar-mode: t
file-name-shadow-mode: t
global-font-lock-mode: t
font-lock-mode: t
blink-cursor-mode: t
auto-composition-mode: t
auto-encryption-mode: t
auto-compression-mode: t
line-number-mode: t
transient-mark-mode: t
Load-path shadows:
None found.
Features:
(shadow sort mail-extr emacsbug message puny seq byte-opt gv bytecomp
byte-compile cl-extra help-mode cconv cl-loaddefs pcase cl-lib dired
dired-loaddefs format-spec rfc822 mml easymenu mml-sec password-cache
epa derived epg epg-config gnus-util rmail rmail-loaddefs mm-decode
mm-bodies mm-encode mail-parse rfc2231 mailabbrev gmm-utils mailheader
sendmail rfc2047 rfc2045 ietf-drums mm-util mail-prsvr mail-utils
time-date mule-util tooltip eldoc electric uniquify ediff-hook vc-hooks
lisp-float-type mwheel term/x-win x-win term/common-win x-dnd tool-bar
dnd fontset image regexp-opt fringe tabulated-list newcomment elisp-mode
lisp-mode prog-mode register page menu-bar rfn-eshadow timer select
scroll-bar mouse jit-lock font-lock syntax facemenu font-core
term/tty-colors frame cl-generic cham georgian utf-8-lang misc-lang
vietnamese tibetan thai tai-viet lao korean japanese eucjp-ms cp51932
hebrew greek romanian slovak czech european ethiopic indian cyrillic
chinese charscript case-table epa-hook jka-cmpr-hook help simple abbrev
obarray minibuffer cl-preloaded nadvice loaddefs button faces cus-face
macroexp files text-properties overlay sha1 md5 base64 format env
code-pages mule custom widget hashtable-print-readable backquote
dbusbind inotify dynamic-setting system-font-setting font-render-setting
move-toolbar gtk x-toolkit x multi-tty make-network-process emacs)
Memory information:
((conses 16 98021 6511)
(symbols 48 21150 0)
(miscs 40 43 83)
(strings 32 17964 4480)
(string-bytes 1 590672)
(vectors 16 14230)
(vector-slots 8 465616 5414)
(floats 8 187 88)
(intervals 56 238 0)
(buffers 976 11)
(heap 1024 22229 700))