diff --git a/docs/conf.py b/docs/conf.py
index d1d64f9f4..784c40223 100644
--- a/docs/conf.py
+++ b/docs/conf.py
@@ -148,7 +148,9 @@ html_last_updated_fmt = '%Y-%m-%d'
 
 # If true, SmartyPants will be used to convert quotes and dashes to
 # typographically correct entities.
-#html_use_smartypants = True
+#
+# This is disabled to avoid mangling --options-that-appear-in-texts.
+html_use_smartypants = False
 
 # Custom sidebar templates, maps document names to template names.
 html_sidebars = {