Re: [groff] How to show all hyphenation points?

[Doug McIlroy]

> a request that would print its argument with all hyphenation points visible
> ...
> it requires a contrivance to discover them

The second bit of the quote seems to answer the first: there's
no need for such a request because the function can be
accomplished fairly easily. 

But I have no perspective on what uses drove the suggestion.

What I see as the typical use is a nonce question about a 
single word. That is trivially handled by
        groff -a
        .ll 1u
        recapitulation
The result is marrred with "can't break line" diagnostics,
but it's quick and intelligible.

Another use would be to consruct hyphenations for a whole
list of words. That would be a rare enough activity to justify
building a "contrivance" for the job per the old Unix adage:
combine tools that do one thing well (in preference to
festooning existing tools with ad hoc features).

Have I overlooked more compelling uses?

Doug