diff --git a/usr.bin/nl/nl.1 b/usr.bin/nl/nl.1
index 977be47a0fb7..6b3f75b3c345 100644
--- a/usr.bin/nl/nl.1
+++ b/usr.bin/nl/nl.1
@@ -98,9 +98,9 @@ nothing but one of the following sequences of delimiter characters:
 .Pp
 .Bl -column "\e:\e:\e:" "Start of" -offset indent
 .Em "Line	Start of"
-.It \e:\e:\e:	header
-.It \e:\e:	body
-.It \e:	footer
+.It "\e:\e:\e:	header"
+.It "\e:\e:	body"
+.It "\e:	footer"
 .El
 .Pp
 If the input does not contain any logical page section signalling directives,