What leads the first element of a printed list to be enclosed with backticks in R v3.5.1? : <p>Recently I updated R to 3.5.1 on may Windows 10 with RStudio v1.1.453. I am interested why the first element of a printed list is now always enclosed in backticks? Even if it is a standard name without illegal symbols, e.g., <code>`a`</code> as in this example:</p>

<pre><code># R 3.5.1
list(a = 1, b = 2, g = 9)
#&gt; $`a`
#&gt; [1] 1
#&gt; 
#&gt; $b
#&gt; [1] 2
#&gt; 
#&gt; $g
#&gt; [1] 9
</code></pre>

<p>In previous versions of R, the result looked like this:</p>

<pre><code># R 3.4.4
list(a = 1, b = 2, g = 9)
#&gt; $a
#&gt; [1] 1
#&gt; 
#&gt; $b
#&gt; [1] 2
#&gt; 
#&gt; $g
#&gt; [1] 9
</code></pre>

<p>Do these additional backticks have some meaning? Is it some kind of advancement? Or is it a side effect of some other R functionality? A drawback?</p>
