Missing backslashes in documentation for 3.8 and 3.9

[JulienPalard]

BPO	42822
Nosy	@JulienPalard, @andresdelfino
PRs	[3.8] bpo-42822: Revert "[3.8] [doc] Fix erroneous backslashes in signatures and names (GH-23658)" #24093 [3.9] bpo-42822: Revert "[3.9] [doc] Fix erroneous backslashes in signatures and names (GH-23658)" #24092

^{Note: these values reflect the state of the issue at the time it was migrated and might not reflect the current state.}

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GitHub fields:

assignee = 'https://github.com/JulienPalard'
closed_at = <Date 2021-01-05.08:35:48.965>
created_at = <Date 2021-01-04.13:03:42.461>
labels = ['3.8', '3.9', 'docs']
title = 'Missing backslashes in documentation for 3.8 and 3.9'
updated_at = <Date 2021-01-05.08:35:48.965>
user = 'https://github.com/JulienPalard'

bugs.python.org fields:

activity = <Date 2021-01-05.08:35:48.965>
actor = 'mdk'
assignee = 'mdk'
closed = True
closed_date = <Date 2021-01-05.08:35:48.965>
closer = 'mdk'
components = ['Documentation']
creation = <Date 2021-01-04.13:03:42.461>
creator = 'mdk'
dependencies = []
files = []
hgrepos = []
issue_num = 42822
keywords = ['patch']
message_count = 1.0
messages = ['384324']
nosy_count = 2.0
nosy_names = ['mdk', 'adelfino']
pr_nums = ['24093', '24092']
priority = 'normal'
resolution = 'fixed'
stage = 'resolved'
status = 'closed'
superseder = None
type = None
url = 'https://bugs.python.org/issue42822'
versions = ['Python 3.8', 'Python 3.9']

[JulienPalard]

This is just to track the issue, initially reported here:

python/python-docs-theme#63

Then discussed here:

#23827 (comment)

Then reverted:

• in 3.8 [3.8] bpo-42822: Revert "[3.8] [doc] Fix erroneous backslashes in signatures and names (GH-23658)" #24093
• in 3.9 [3.9] bpo-42822: Revert "[3.9] [doc] Fix erroneous backslashes in signatures and names (GH-23658)" #24092

I edited the revert to keep only relevant parts, as only a few bits of the commit were causing troubles.

Issue is: Sphinx 2 and Sphinx 3 have incompatible handling of backslahes, fixing them for Sphinx 3 in Python 3.10, then backporting to 3.8 and 3.9 which use Sphinx 2 caused an issue: \n for example are rendered as n, easy to notice in the documentaion of print:

print(*objects, sep=' ', end='n', file=sys.stdout, flush=False)¶

As migration to Sphinx 3 was hard (done for Python 3.10 documentation), it won't be backported to 3.8 and 3.9, which will still be built using Sphinx 2, so some bits had to be reverted for the doc to display the backslash of \n.