help with 'test' command (gnu, not built-in)

[Timothy J Luoma <public+Lists/Unix/Zsh/Users@xxxxxxx>]

GNU utilities no longer maintain 'man' pages (thanks bunches for that,  
whoever decided on that one) so I usually use the '--help' flag.

Unfortunately I can't get anything out of GNU-test which wants

{--help}

as an argument.

These are some of the things I have tried: (zsh 3.1.4)

/usr/local/gnu/bin/test {--help}

which gives me:

/usr/local/gnu/bin/test: too many arguments
zsh: 28553 exit 1     /usr/local/gnu/bin/test - . / 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 : ;  
< = > ? @ A B C D E F G

all the rest exit with code = 0

/usr/local/gnu/bin/test \{--help\}
/usr/local/gnu/bin/test \{\-\-help\}
/usr/local/gnu/bin/test "\{\-\-help\}"
/usr/local/gnu/bin/test '{--help}'
/usr/local/gnu/bin/test "{--help}"
/usr/local/gnu/bin/test '\{--help\}'
/usr/local/gnu/bin/test "\{--help\}"

I must have something turned on that is preventing zsh from doing this  
right, or else I am dumb as a post, which is possible.

Thanks for any clues

TjL