Csh, alias substitution, & backslash

[Stephen Brooks]

  In the C-shell, you can prevent alias substitution by preceding the
aliased command with a backslash.  For example, you might have:

        % alias rm
        rm -i
        % alias cd
        cd !* ; pwd

However, why does "\rm" work, but "\cd" does not?  Yes, I realize that
"cd" is a C-shell builtin command, but I haven't been able to find any
discussion on how the \ prevents alias substitution.  For example (using
the above aliases):

==================== this does what I expect ==================== 

        % ls
        file1           file2           file3
        % rm *
        rm: remove file1? n
        rm: remove file1? n
        rm: remove file1? n
        % ls
        file1           file2           file3
        % \rm *
        % ls
        %

==================== this does not do what I expect ==================== 

        % cd
        /usr/users/steve
        % \cd
        cd: Command not found.

So, why does the \ prevent the C-shell from recognizing the builtin
command as well as preventing alias substitution?  Feature?  Bug?
--
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