Has negative matching changed?

Can you now add a phrase without brackets?

[kooky]

I reacall negative matching only allowed one single word in the past, if you wanted to match a phrase you needed square brackets.

if you wanted to negative match 'red widget' you would need:
-[red widget]

but if you had put
-red widget

this didn't do anything.

Has it now been updated to accept '-red widget'?

If so, does that also negative match 'widget red'?

I can't find exact info on this anywhere!

[RhinoFish]

[webmasterworld.com...]

[kooky]

Great - thanks. Trying to find that by searching for it on Google is like trying to find a needle in a haystack.