Comment by Avshalom

this actually gets at the real problem. Lisps are wordy as hell. like jesus

  (split-sequence:split-sequence #\Space line)

now imagine if that was

  (split-string " " line)

image if the whole function was

  (defun split (line)
    (remove [\(word) (= "" word)] [split-string " " line]))

or even

  (defun split (line)
    (remove "" [split-string " " line]))

*using [] in place of rainbow parens for clarity of sub arguments