Sorry for the delay, I've been busy in the IRLs. I've updated the patch to reflect that the parser grabs the text before the last " :: " and then parses it as objects. The new patch is attached.

-- 
Tom Alexander

On Thu, Sep 14, 2023, at 7:24 AM, Ihor Radchenko wrote:
> "Tom Alexander" <tom@fizz.buzz> writes:
>
>> I've written a patch (attached) with my proposed wording changes to
>> the documentation, should I be starting another thread or does
>> dropping it here work best?
>
> You can just modify subject with [PATCH], as I did.
>
>> ... I do not have commit access so I'd need
>> someone with such authority to do the last bit.
>
> Sure.
>
>> +  =TAG-TEXT= is one of more objects from the standard set so long as
>> +  they do not contain a newline character, until the last occurrence
>> +  of the substring =" :: "= (two colons surrounded by whitespace,
>> +  without the quotes).
>
> It does not fully represent what is going on - Org parser is top-down
> and does not parse objects before it is done parsing the descriptive
> list item. So,
>
> - *foo :: bar* does not actually contain bold markup
>
> Rather it is "* foo" tag + "bar* does not actually contain bold markup" 
> description.
>
> What happens is that the parser splits the first line of the item by the
> last " :: " and only then proceeds with parsing the tag and description
> using standard set of objects:
>
> - <....> :: <text not containing :: >
>
> -- 
> Ihor Radchenko // yantar92,
> Org mode contributor,
> Learn more about Org mode at <https://orgmode.org/>.
> Support Org development at <https://liberapay.com/org-mode>,
> or support my work at <https://liberapay.com/yantar92>