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."