Can I switch off automatic repetition of spanner text?

[Matthew Munro]

Greetings, all.

I have searched for help on this and failed to find. Please would someone tell 
me how to suppress automatic repetition of spanner text (where the spanner 
reaches a new line)? Repetition appears to be the default. I have not seen such 
repetition in my sheet music (except for ottava markings) and, now that I am 
writing my own music, the repetition has a tendency to interfere with my 
paradigm. I am happy for the spanner’s dashes to continue from line to line, 
but I would like a way to switch off the repetition of text.

By the way... Checking my sheet music just now, I noticed (in Ravel) that there 
is another method for spanning text: breaking up the words into letters or 
groups of letters, to make the words last throughout the span. Does Lilypond 
have any facility for this?

Best wishes,

Matthew