Éric Araujo <merwok@netwok.org> added the comment: I think it’s a common English term (i.e. “shallow water” to describe a small lake-like thing where you can go without swimming), but non-native speakers may not know it (I don’t remember if I knew it before learning Python, for example). What about this: All slice operations return a new list containing the requested elements. This -means that the following slice returns a shallow copy of the list *a*:: +means that the following slice returns a shallow copy (see the documentation of +the :mod:`copy` module for a definition) of the list *a*:: (BTW, you can use syntax like Doc/tutorial/introduction.rst:487 to have links generated; see http://docs.python.org/devguide/triaging#generating-special-links-in-a-comme... —also linked from the “Comment” label in the form, but it isn’t obvious that it’s a link). ---------- nosy: +eric.araujo, ezio.melotti, terry.reedy versions: +Python 2.7, Python 3.2 _______________________________________ Python tracker <report@bugs.python.org> <http://bugs.python.org/issue14112> _______________________________________