in a more traditional sense Lisp does not have operators by default. Operators which have a special syntax (infix ...) and precedence rules. Operators like + an

in a more traditional sense Lisp does not have operators by default. Operators which have a special syntax (infix ...) and precedence rules. Operators like + and - are written as normal functions -- thus these characters are allowed in function names. Actually more characters incl. whitespace and returns are possible -> one can escape characters in symbols or whole symbols. There are a bunch of conventions for naming things: +foo+ ; convention for naming a constant *foo* ; convention for naming a special/global variable foo-bar ; convention for a compound name Other programming languages use FooBar, foo_bar or similar, instead of foo-bar. More naming conventions in Lisp are collected here: https://www.cliki.net/Naming+conventions https://www.cliki.net/Naming+conventions