Re: [Groff] underlining

[Carsten Kunze]

> Actually, why not?  I'd like to argue that request names carry
> with them an "implied contract" as to their function, and "ul"
> stands for underline, so that's what it should be used for.
> It's not unreasonable to assume that the "I say underline
> but actually mean italic" was a hack already at the time
> troff was introduced, in order to make older nroff documents
> (that *did* use underlining) look prettier on the typesetter.
> If this (mis)feature is really needed for older documents,
> then that's what we have compatibility mode for.  I'm hoping
> nobody actually uses "ul" for italic in this enlightened age
> (where we can say "ft" instead), so it would again be free
> for its real purpose.

And why not use a new name? Why not use one with mnemonic (more than two 
characters)? And (most important) why Doug's really good suggestion seems to be 
ignored on this list?

It should simply be not necessary to change otroff .ul after more than 40 years 
(!) since there are so good alternatives.