For many identifiers (including $asc()) there is always the possibility that extra parameters could be added, why remove that possibility and make the language inconsistent simply because some people can't be bothered to assign a variable first?
This is where my idea comes in to add to $asc (as I said above) and give it a "treat this comma as text" switch or something like that [like $read()]. Originaql comments can be found in my previous reply
