Use of the Dot Character (ANSI and GNU Common Lisp Document)

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#### 1.4.1.10 Use of the Dot Character

The dot appearing by itself in an expression such as

`(item1 item2 `.` tail)`

means that tail represents a list of objects at the end of a list. For example,

`(A B C `.` (D E F))`

is notationally equivalent to:

`(A B C D E F)`

Although dot is a valid constituent character in a symbol, no standardized symbols contain the character dot, so a period that follows a reference to a symbol at the end of a sentence in this document should always be interpreted as a period and never as part of the symbol’s name. For example, within this document, a sentence such as “This sample sentence refers to the symbol car.” refers to a symbol whose name is `"CAR"` (with three letters), and never to a four-letter symbol `"CAR."`