Section 2.4 of the Haskell report defines "identifier" as a lexeme that begins with a letter. A few paragraphs on it says An operator symbol starting with any other character [than :] is an ordinary identifier. In everyday usage, ordinary people are necessarily people, yet this kind of ordinary identifier falls outside the definition of identifier. Section 3.2 says An operator is either an operator symbol, such as + or $$, or is an ordinary identifier enclosed in grave accents. If "either" is taken in the exclusive sense, this implies that operator symbols are *not* ordinary identifiers, in contradiction to Section 2.4. But if either is taken inclusively, then the lexeme +, an ordinary identifier per Section 2.4, can optionally be enclosed in grave accents. The terminology needs some cleaning. Doug McIlroy