> R began as an experiment in trying to use the methods of Lisp implementors to build a small testbed which could be used to trial some ideas on how a statistical environment might be built. Early on, the decision was made to use an S-like syntax. Once that decision was made, the move toward being more and more like S has been irresistible.
Since I find it basically impossible to remember how 'eval', 'quote', 'substitute', etc. work in R, I suspect that the Lispers are onto something when they say that the lack of syntax in Lisp is an important feature.
[1] http://www.stat.auckland.ac.nz/%7Eihaka/downloads/Interface9...