>And the only reason they are recognized in brackets is because brackets can also be used as parentheses for array indexes, where constants need to be recognized... so it accidentally catches them within bracketed string literals, but not otherwise. That's a syntactical hiccup which can be a solution or cause of a problem, depending on what you do :).

As most other laguages only have 2 string delimiters, I tend to see this hiccup more as a solution than as a wart... Standardize on the typical ones, reserve brackets for cases they are a solution or are used with brain running on more than the low idle normal string handling only needs....