Most words in RETRO have a stack comment. These look like: (-) (nn-n) As with all comments, a stack comment begins with ( and should end with a ). There are two parts to the comment. On the left side of the - is what the word *consumes*. On the right is what it *leaves*. RETRO uses a short notation, with one character per value taken or left. In general, the following symbols represent certain types of values. b, n, m, o, x, y, z are generic numeric values s represents a string v represents a variable p, a represent pointers q represents a quotation d represents a dictionary header f represents a `TRUE` or `FALSE` flag. In the case of something like: (xyz-m) RETRO expects z to be on the top of the stack, with y below it and x below the y value. And after execution, a single value (m) will be left on the stack. Words with no stack effect have a comment of (-)