Okay, so maybe "lop:ret" and "lop ret" can be parsed the same (agree about the poorly thought-out syntax), but I don't see why "loop:ret" needs to be parsed as

Okay, so maybe "lop:ret" and "lop ret" can be parsed the same (agree about the poorly thought-out syntax), but I don't see why "loop:ret" needs to be parsed as "loop ret" unless the colon is actually whitespace in masm.