The overly clever argument is only valid if you think the point of K&R is to teach good programming style. In fact it's to teach you to read and write C program

The overly clever argument is only valid if you think the point of K&R is to teach good programming style. In fact it's to teach you to read and write C programs. In many cases the learning point is achieved by the reader puzzling out why the code works and learning from this. Complaining that this isn't easy enough is missing the point. Arguing that the language shouldn't allow such constructs is again outside the scope of the argument. K&R designed the language, so presumably they agree with the design.