"site that explains rs232 quite eloquently.."

The very first line on that site says, "Communication as defined in the RS-232C standard is an asynchronous serial communication method."

As I mentioned elsewhere only today, RS232 is not limited to just asynchronous comms!

I have a genuine copy of the TIA/EIA-232-F document before me; in section 1.5 on p2 it specifically states, "This standard applies to both synchronous and nonsynchronous serial binary data communication systems"

Moral: beware of internet user sites; for the definitive answer, you must always refer to the source document(s).
See my rant in this thread