diff --git a/man4/null.4 b/man4/null.4
index d31c1c659..0a2068070 100644
--- a/man4/null.4
+++ b/man4/null.4
@@ -22,14 +22,16 @@
 .\" USA.
 .\"
 .\" Modified Sat Jul 24 17:00:12 1993 by Rik Faith (faith@cs.unc.edu)
-.TH NULL 4 1992-11-21 "Linux" "Linux Programmer's Manual"
+.TH NULL 4 2009-02-23 "Linux" "Linux Programmer's Manual"
 .SH NAME
 null, zero \- data sink
 .SH DESCRIPTION
-Data written on a \fBnull\fP or \fBzero\fP special file is discarded.
+Data written to a \fBnull\fP or \fBzero\fP special file is discarded.
 .PP
-Reads from the \fBnull\fP special file always return end of file, whereas
-reads from \fBzero\fP always return \e0 characters.
+Reads from the \fBnull\fP special file always return end of file (i.e.,
+.BR read (2)
+returns 0), whereas
+reads from \fBzero\fP always return bytes containing zero (\e0 characters).
 .LP
 \fBnull\fP and \fBzero\fP are typically created by:
 .RS