+(defcustom el-search-use-sloppy-strings nil
+ "Whether to allow the usage of \"sloppy strings\".
+When this option is turned on, for faster typing you are allowed
+to specify symbols instead of strings as arguments to an
+\"el-search\" pattern type that would otherwise accept only
+strings, and their names will be used as input (with other words,
+this spares you to type the string delimiters in many cases).
+
+For example,
+
+ \(source ^cl\)
+
+is then equivalent to
+
+ \(source \"^cl\"\)
+
+When this option is off, the first form would just signal an
+error."
+ :type 'boolean)
+