non-list arguments

[Guy Steele <gls@THINK-AQUINAS.ARPA>]

	I haven't checked the manuals for T or Scheme but it was certainly the
	intent that the list passed to APPLY is unrelated to the list that a
	rest-parameter gets bound to.  The rest-list should always be freshly
	consed, so e.g. the procedure LIST is equivalent to (LAMBDA X X).  The
	last argument to APPLY must be a proper list.  I think Common Lisp takes
	the same stance.
    
    A quick scan of the Common Lisp book leaves the question unresolved;
    maybe Guy Steele could comment.

This question came up recently on the Common-Lisp mailing list.  The
unofficial consensus, as I understood it, was that the book is vague on
this point and requires correcting; that the last argument to APPLY
should be a proper list; and that a list passed as an argument to APPLY
might or might not share list structure with an eventual &REST argument
resulting from the application.

--Guy