diff --git a/docs/libcurl/curl_easy_setopt.3 b/docs/libcurl/curl_easy_setopt.3
index 66412937b..01618bbf5 100644
--- a/docs/libcurl/curl_easy_setopt.3
+++ b/docs/libcurl/curl_easy_setopt.3
@@ -1597,9 +1597,9 @@ The checking this option controls is of the identity that the server
 .IP CURLOPT_SSL_CIPHER_LIST
 Pass a char *, pointing to a zero terminated string holding the list of
 ciphers to use for the SSL connection. The list must be syntactically correct,
-it consists of one or more cipher strings separated by colons. Commas or spaces
-are also acceptable separators but colons are normally used, \!, \- and \+ can
-be used as operators.
+it consists of one or more cipher strings separated by colons. Commas or
+spaces are also acceptable separators but colons are normally used, \&!, \&-
+and \&+ can be used as operators.
 
 For OpenSSL and GnuTLS valid examples of cipher lists include 'RC4-SHA',
 \'SHA1+DES\', 'TLSv1' and 'DEFAULT'. The default list is normally set when you