In Bash, word splitting is a step in command line processing. From Bash Manual

> 
> The shell treats each character of $IFS as a delimiter, and splits the
>  results of the other expansions into words using these characters as
>  field terminators. If IFS is unset, or its value is exactly
>  `<space><tab><newline>`, the default, then sequences of `<space>, <tab>,
>  and <newline>` at the beginning and end of the results of the previous
>  expansions are ignored, and any sequence of IFS characters not at the
>  beginning or end serves to delimit words. If IFS has a value other
>  than the default, then sequences of the whitespace characters space
>  and tab are ignored at the beginning and end of the word, as long as
>  the whitespace character is in the value of IFS (an IFS whitespace
>  character). Any character in IFS that is not IFS whitespace, along
>  with any adjacent IFS whitespace characters, delimits a field. A
>  sequence of IFS whitespace characters is also treated as a delimiter.
>  If the value of IFS is null, no word splitting occurs.
> 
> 
> 

I want to rewrite the following example, so that the delimiter `space` between the arguments `a`, `b` and `c` is replaced with `tab` or `newline`

```
$ echo a b c
a b c

```

But when I hit the key `Tab`, there is no response. 

When I hit `\` and `return`, there is no space between `a`, `b` and `c` in the output:

```
$ echo a\
> b\
> c
abc

```

Why can't I do what the quote says?

Btw, nothing comes out of `$IFS`:

```
$ echo $IFS

```