Re: How to restore the layout?

[Stephen J. Turnbull]

Stephen Berman writes:

 > A more idiomatic, though to my ear still stilted, phasing would be:
 > 
 >    Parameters not saved by `current-window-configuration' or
 >    `window-state-get' are respectively left alone by
 >    `set-window-configuration' or not installed by `window-state-put'.

Idiomatically, in American English, "respectively" normally does not
create sets of correspondences across clauses, it creates analogies
within clauses which bind positionally across clauses:

    `set-window-configuration' (respectively, `window-state-put')
    affects only parameters saved by `current-window-configuration'
    (respectively, `window-state-get').

Typically in technical writing the word "respectively" is often
abbreviated to "resp." or even elided:

    `set-window-configuration' (`window-state-put') affects only
    parameters saved by `current-window-configuration'
    (`window-state-get').

It's very much like an alist of the form (KEY . (VALUE1 VALUE2 ...)),
as the parenthetical phrases can contain sequences of items.