Re: syntax / method for executing an emacs lisp function?

[farbot]

Thank you very much for your kind and thoughtful replies.  After
getting into Lisp Interaction mode, I was able to execute the
regexp-opt command using C-j.

It looks now like I took many wrong turns in over four hours of reading
the manuals and searching help yesterday.  I did search for help on
Lisp Interaction, but somehow ended up at "External Lisp", which told
me to use RET to execute commands.  I appreciate the pointers to the
specific wiki and manual pages; those were extremely helpful.

Thanks for taking the time to help me run this one command I needed.