You have to patronize at least a little bit to write something that is more than a glorified assembly language - otherwise you have no basis to build your other

You have to patronize at least a little bit to write something that is more than a glorified assembly language - otherwise you have no basis to build your other abstractions on. With C, for example, there's a predefined model for the callstack based around having a fixed set of arguments for function calls and singular return values. Forth, on the other hand, treats words as simple nested subroutines, keeps data on a global stack, and lets the data carry over from one word to the next. No explicit arguments or return values are necessary. C can be characterized as "safe," while Forth is "flexible," depending on your use case, but in terms of pure performance both models have strengths and weaknesses.