(General Escape Syntax): Update explanation of unicode escape syntax.

1 files changed, 10 insertions, 9 deletions

diff --git a/doc/lispref/objects.texi b/doc/lispref/objects.texi
index 9291ca1160b..aa82c3db85a 100644
--- a/doc/lispref/objects.texi
+++ b/doc/lispref/objects.texi
@@ -346,18 +346,19 @@ following text.)
 @subsubsection General Escape Syntax
 
   In addition to the specific escape sequences for special important
-control characters, Emacs provides general categories of escape syntax
-that you can use to specify non-ASCII text characters.
+control characters, Emacs provides several types of escape syntax that
+you can use to specify non-ASCII text characters.
 
 @cindex unicode character escape
-  For instance, you can specify characters by their Unicode values.
+  You can specify characters by their Unicode values.
 @code{?\u@var{nnnn}} represents a character that maps to the Unicode
-code point @samp{U+@var{nnnn}}.  There is a slightly different syntax
-for specifying characters with code points above @code{#xFFFF};
-@code{\U00@var{nnnnnn}} represents the character whose Unicode code
-point is @samp{U+@var{nnnnnn}}, if such a character is supported by
-Emacs.  If the corresponding character is not supported, Emacs signals
-an error.
+code point @samp{U+@var{nnnn}} (by convention, Unicode code points are
+given in hexadecimal).  There is a slightly different syntax for
+specifying characters with code points higher than
+@code{U+@var{ffff}}: @code{\U00@var{nnnnnn}} represents the character
+whose code point is @samp{U+@var{nnnnnn}}.  The Unicode standard only
+defines code points up to @samp{U+@var{10ffff}}, so if you specify a
+code point higher than that, Emacs signals an error.
 
   This peculiar and inconvenient syntax was adopted for compatibility
 with other programming languages.  Unlike some other languages, Emacs