[As a follow-on, should I open a new issue/discuss on python-dev? Willing to help out with a solution on way or another! I know https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Chesterton%27s_fence, "In my head" <> "Should be the case" etc. very much applies.] In my head @... def foo(): pass is equivalent to def _foo(): pass foo = ...() del _foo However the following shows this is not the case: @0 def foo(): pass throws a syntax error, whereas def _foo(): pass foo = 0(_foo) throws a type error. This might seem silly, but it is still unexpected. https://docs.python.org/3/reference/compound_stmts.html#grammar-token-decorator has decorator ::= "@" dotted_name ["(" [argument_list [","]] ")"] NEWLINE which in my head is decorator ::= "@" atom NEWLINE Similarly for classes: https://docs.python.org/3/reference/compound_stmts.html#class-definitions inheritance ::= "(" [argument_list] ")" which allows for keyword arguments (does that make any sense!?). In my head it is (compare with call: https://docs.python.org/3/reference/expressions.html#calls) inheritance ::= "(" [positional_arguments [","] | comprehension] ")" [Tangentially related, this is how I originally got onto the mailing lists, my unhappiness with the definition of the for statement (https://docs.python.org/3/reference/compound_stmts.html#the-for-statement): for_stmt ::= "for" target_list "in" expression_list ":" suite ["else" ":" suite] Which I would expect to be: for_stmt ::= comp_for ":" suite ["else" ":" suite] so you could e.g. have if statements. ]