list of characters/patterns with special meaning:

• current: , ; : .. [ ] >> name[] name.i[] {} numbers
• whitespace could be considered a special character (because it is not kept as is) and we might want to make it "escapable"
• planned (for automatic patterns): * ?
• potential (for logic operators): | & !

we might want to reserve some or all other special characters just in case: # @ % / = + -
Or, we could define the precise list of characters a label can be made of which we can guarantee will not be interpreted.