On 7/31/20, Larry Kollar <larry.kol...@me.com> wrote: > It’s a space, which I would presume ends a word. A zero-width space, > by definition, but still a space.
I suppose that depends where you're getting your definition. The groff(7) man page and the Texinfo manual define \: as a "zero-width break point," which does not suggest the observed behavior in the way your alternate definition does. groff(7) calls \& a "non-printable, zero-width glyph" but the Texinfo manual calls it a "zero-width space." However, \& does not have the hyphenation-resetting property that \: does.
