> So you have something that has a ' in front, is that a lifetime, or a missing ' later?

Not once has this come up for me. They are in completely different places syntactically and can never overlap.

Sure, `'` might be text related in a lot of languages but definitely not universally. In LISP 'foo is shorthand for (quote foo) and also does not have a second character. Ocaml uses 'foo for types and foo' is just a valid identifier. Standard ML also has 'foo for type variables and I believe also allows identifiers named foo'. Haskell allows identifiers named foo' as well.

Maybe it's odd coming from languages you are familiar with, but it's not at all something that is unique to Rust.

> Rust does this with ! as well if I understand correctly

I am not sure how the case with ! is similar. Macros just end with ! to make them clearer visually, it's not part of an operator. There can never be any syntax ambiguity with them, neither visually or lexically. Also what would be the point. Take this example:

    try!(do_something(...)).further();

Do you really think this would be more readable?

    (macro try(do_something(...))).further();