diff --git a/doc/emacs/search.texi b/doc/emacs/search.texi
index bb01f10d2cb..daaded19294 100644
--- a/doc/emacs/search.texi
+++ b/doc/emacs/search.texi
@@ -1187,15 +1187,16 @@ tailor them to your needs.
   By default, search commands perform @dfn{lax space matching}:
 each space, or sequence of spaces, matches any sequence of one or more
 whitespace characters in the text.  (Incremental regexp search has a
-separate default; see @ref{Regexp Search}.)  Hence, @samp{foo bar}
-matches @samp{foo bar}, @samp{foo@w{  }bar}, @samp{foo@w{   }bar}, and
-so on (but not @samp{foobar}).  More precisely, Emacs matches each
-sequence of space characters in the search string to a regular
-expression specified by the variable @code{search-whitespace-regexp}.
-For example, to make spaces match sequences of newlines as well as
-spaces, set it to @samp{"[[:space:]\n]+"}.  The default value of this
-variable depends on the buffer's major mode; most major modes classify
-spaces, tabs, and formfeed characters as whitespace.
+separate default; see @ref{Regexp Search}.)  Hence, @w{@samp{foo bar}}
+matches @w{@samp{foo bar}}, @w{@samp{foo@ @ bar}},
+@w{@samp{foo@ @ @ bar}}, and so on (but not @samp{foobar}).  More
+precisely, Emacs matches each sequence of space characters in the
+search string to a regular expression specified by the variable
+@code{search-whitespace-regexp}.  For example, to make spaces match
+sequences of newlines as well as spaces, set it to
+@samp{"[[:space:]\n]+"}.  The default value of this variable depends
+on the buffer's major mode; most major modes classify spaces, tabs,
+and formfeed characters as whitespace.
 
   If you want whitespace characters to match exactly, you can turn lax
 space matching off by typing @kbd{M-s @key{SPC}}