From:
http://docs.python.org/reference/datamodel.html#the-standard-type-hierarchy

"Class instances
    Class instances are described below. Class instances are callable
only when the class has a __call__() method; x(arguments) is a shorthand
for x.__call__(arguments)."

The following program demonstrates otherwise regarding that last statement. 

def call(self):
    print "inserted __call__ in object of class A"

class A(object):
    def __call__(self):
        print "__call__ method in class A"
        
x = A()               # Equates: x = type(A).__call__(A)
x.__call__ = call

x()                   # Calls the method of class A.
x.__call__(x)         # Calls function "call".
type(x).__call__(x)   # The correct longhand of x() IMHO


If I were to rephrase the documentation:
"Class instances
    Class instances are described below. Class instances are callable
only when the class has a __call__() method; x(arguments) is a shorthand
for type(x).__call__(x, arguments)."

On further reading it seems my objections only apply to new style classes.

FYI, all special methods are (now) looked up on the type for new style
classes.  Your suggested rewrite makes things more confusing, IMO
(partly because to make it accurate it would need to be something like
type(x).__call__(x, *args, **kw), which doesn't really make the sentence
clearer).

So far I haven't thought of a rewording I like.  The best I've come up
with is "x(arguments) invokes the __call__ method, passing it the
arguments."  This leaves it to other parts of the language spec to
explain how __call__ gets resolved.

Whatever we decide to do, section 3.4.4 will need a similar update.

For some reason the 3.2 docs don't contain the sentence you reference,
but they do have the same mistake in section 3.4.4.  Which is even more
of a mistake in 3.x, since there are only new style classes there.

The PR uses a slight rewording of David's phrasing.

New changeset 95f710c55714153f0c8cce48f8215bb3d866ac1d by Andre Delfino in branch 'master':
bpo-6761: Enhance __call__ documentation (GH-7987)
https://github.com/python/cpython/commit/95f710c55714153f0c8cce48f8215bb3d866ac1d

New changeset b1ce0440bfe87e092ca5e2e57875fb7fc1129137 by Miss Skeleton (bot) in branch '3.8':
bpo-6761: Enhance __call__ documentation (GH-7987)
https://github.com/python/cpython/commit/b1ce0440bfe87e092ca5e2e57875fb7fc1129137

New changeset 2cb259fcf3cde56f359c2f393280689784dcc834 by Miss Skeleton (bot) in branch '3.9':
bpo-6761: Enhance __call__ documentation (GH-7987)
https://github.com/python/cpython/commit/2cb259fcf3cde56f359c2f393280689784dcc834