How to break a long string into multiple lines in the prompt of read -p within the source code?

I am writing an installation script that will be run as /bin/sh. There is a line prompting for a file: read -p "goat may try to change directory if cd fails to do so. Would you like to add this feature? [Y|n] " REPLY I would like to break this long line into many lines so that none of them exceed 80 characters. I'm talking about **the lines within the source code** of the script; *not* about the lines that are to be actually printed on the screen when the script is executed! What I've tried: - Frist approach: read -p "oat may try to change directory if cd fails to do so. " \ "Would you like to add this feature? [Y|n] " REPLY This doesn't work since it doesn't print Would you like to add this feature? [Y|n] . - Second approach: echo "oat may try to change directory if cd fails to do so. " \ "Would you like to add this feature? [Y|n] " read REPLY Doesn't work as well. It prints a newline after the prompt. Adding -n option to echo doesn't help: it just prints: -n goat oat may try to change directory if cd fails to do so. Would you like to add this feature? [Y|n] # empty line here - ###My current workaround is printf '%s %s ' \ "oat may try to change directory if cd fails to do so." \ "Would you like to add this feature? [Y|n] " read REPLY ###and I wonder if there is a better way. Remember that I am looking for a /bin/sh compatible solution.