It doesn't work reliably any more. I was using :match "n -" {} and that worked for n, north, go n & go north. This no longer works. I even tried :match "n -;north -;go n;go north" {} and the latter two weren't caught. You can still see this at the forest path in Seeker of Magic. Although it's not listed as a direction, you can use u or up to climb the tree, but go u and go up no longer work. They used to.