Thanks! After "pretend that if is a function" I do immediately proceed to explain evaluation semantics: "what does it mean by 'if is a special form'? It turns out that if isn’t a regular function." Of course, I am open to suggestions for better wording etc.
That's assuming you were talking about the "cc-mode customization" chapter. If I've called "if" a function anywhere else please let me know! And keep the feedback coming. :-)
My bad I stopped reading too soon. So maybe just using a different verb than 'is' would be enough to avoid confusion. (and yes I was on the cc-mode customization page)
Its focus is on self-driven discovery by leveraging the Emacs built-in help and source code. Feedback welcome.