I noticed a while ago that people sometimes miss information in my messages when I include it in the form of footnotes1. I have been corrupted by extensive reading of the newsgroup comp.unix.sysadmin.recovery3 where messages without footnotes invariably denote new chums4. In point of fact, the old hands delight in such mischiefs5 as recursive and self-referencing footnotes6. Not that I would ever do such a thing.
1
It's a little confusing when text is placed out-of-line but that just makes
the message more interesting2.
2
The Chinese curse, "May you live in interesting times.", may apply here.
3
It may be alt, I'm not exactly sure.
4
Newbies as net jargon would have it.
5
Perhaps not actually mischief, but some would have it so1.
6
Any self-referencing footnote is evidently recursive6 but a
recursive footnote need not be directly self-referencing7
but must of course refer to itself at least indirectly to
establish the required digraph cycle.
7
A layer of indirection can allow a recursive but
non-self-referencing6 footnote to recurse.