Whats up with Bash expansion?

[Harry Putnam]

NoOp <glgxg at sbcglobal.net> writes:

>> Does anyone know if this is something that is configurable?
>
> See if this helps:
> http://manpages.ubuntu.com/manpages/natty/en/man1/bash.1.html
> [Easier than reading from the terminal as it's a long man page & you can
> click on the left side for sections of interest; 'Simple Command
> Expansion', 'Redirection' etc.

Do you know know if this behavior is new?  Do you notice a difference
recently?