So, do you prefer people have this misconception instead? https://unix.stackexchange.com/q/544189/348263 https://unix.stackexchange.com/q/544189/348263 Also, f

So, do you prefer people have this misconception instead? https://unix.stackexchange.com/q/544189/348263 https://unix.stackexchange.com/q/544189/348263 Also, for the case of passing multiple arguments to a command, just use an array: SOMETHING=(foo bar) grep "${SOMETHING[@]}" It will handle arguments with spaces correctly, unlike using a string variable and splitting it on spaces. There is no reason to ever use space splitting, unless you're maintaining some legacy interface where you can only pass a string instead of an array.