syntactical properties of characters appearing in the buffer.
@xref{Syntax}.
- The major modes fall into three major groups. Lisp mode (which has
-several variants), C mode, Fortran mode and others are for specific
-programming languages. Text mode, Nroff mode, SGML mode, @TeX{} mode
-and Outline mode are for normal text, plain or marked up. The remaining
-major modes are not intended for use on users' files; they are used in
-buffers created for specific purposes by Emacs, such as Dired mode for
-buffers made by Dired (@pxref{Dired}), Mail mode for buffers made by
-@kbd{C-x m} (@pxref{Sending Mail}), and Shell mode for buffers used for
+ The major modes fall into three major groups. The first group
+contains modes for normal text, either plain or with mark-up. It
+includes Text mode, HTML mode, SGML mode, @TeX{} mode and Outline
+mode. The second group contains modes for specific programming
+languages. These include Lisp mode (which has several variants), C
+mode, Fortran mode, and others. The remaining major modes are not
+intended for use on users' files; they are used in buffers created for
+specific purposes by Emacs, such as Dired mode for buffers made by
+Dired (@pxref{Dired}), Mail mode for buffers made by @kbd{C-x m}
+(@pxref{Sending Mail}), and Shell mode for buffers used for
communicating with an inferior shell process (@pxref{Interactive
Shell}).
For example, one element normally found in the list has the form
@code{(@t{"\\.c\\'"} . c-mode)}, and it is responsible for selecting C
mode for files whose names end in @file{.c}. (Note that @samp{\\} is
-needed in Lisp syntax to include a @samp{\} in the string, which is
-needed to suppress the special meaning of @samp{.} in regexps.) If the
+needed in Lisp syntax to include a @samp{\} in the string, which must
+be used to suppress the special meaning of @samp{.} in regexps.) If the
element has the form @code{(@var{regexp} @var{mode-function}
@var{flag})} and @var{flag} is non-@code{nil}, then after calling
@var{mode-function}, the suffix that matched @var{regexp} is discarded
@noindent
tells Emacs to use Lisp mode. Such an explicit specification overrides
-any defaulting based on the file name. Note how the semicolon is used
+any defaults based on the file name. Note how the semicolon is used
to make Lisp treat this line as a comment.
Another format of mode specification is
mode Emacs would choose automatically: use the command @kbd{M-x
normal-mode} to do this. This is the same function that
@code{find-file} calls to choose the major mode. It also processes
-the file's local variables list if any.
+the file's local variables list (if any).
@vindex change-major-mode-with-file-name
The commands @kbd{C-x C-w} and @code{set-visited-file-name} change to