"as" keyword woes

[MRAB]

Aaron Brady wrote:
> On Dec 9, 8:28 am, MRAB <goo... at mrabarnett.plus.com> wrote:
> snip
>> In some languages (I think Delphi is one of them - it's been a while!)
>> some words which would normally be identifiers have a special meaning in
>> certain contexts, but the syntax precludes any ambiguity, and not in a
>> difficult way. "as" in Python was one of those.
>>
>> I certainly wouldn't want something like PL/I, where "IF", "THEN" and
>> "ELSE" could be identifiers, so you could have code like:
>>
>>      IF IF = THEN THEN
>>          THEN = ELSE;
>>      ELSE
>>          ELSE = IF;
>>
>> See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PL/I_(programming_language).
> snip
> 
> The following are semantically equivalent:
> 
> I certainly wouldn't want something like PL/I, where "IF", "THEN" and
> "ELSE" could be identifiers.
> 
> I wouldn't want something like PL/I, where "IF", "THEN" and "ELSE"
> could be identifiers.
> 
> That is, 'certainly' doesn't change the meaning of your statement
> any.  You wouldn't want it, but King George III didn't want the
> American Revolution.
> 
It's called emphasis.

> You wouldn't want it.  What does that mean for me (the generic
> reader), and Python?  What can I learn from that fact?
>