Subject should explain my question effectively.
If you don't know what an escape character is, however, lemme `splain:
If you do 'msg $nick $moo' then it calls an identifier $moo and sends the results.
If mIRC's escape character was a \ (standard in most languages), and you dod 'msg $nick \$moo' then it would send them the text $moo.

$chr(#) is handy enough until you find things it doesn't want to give up the value for, like , or a space. Then you have to go searching for the value.
Not to mention, an escape character would look prettier.
So I thought, surely mIRC must have one. But I can't find anything about it in the help file.

No, it does not have one.

You can use $eval() (or $(), they're the same) or use $! in your identifier. E.g.

$eval($moo,0)
$($moo,0)
$!moo