There are three types of syntax.  Good Syntax, Bad Syntax, and what I like to call Helpful Syntax.  As with all things of life, communication is critical.  Programmers and their lighting desks must communicate.  To communicate, you must speak the language (or have a translator - more to come on this later).  When programming lights, we push buttons in a specific order depending on the task we want to accomplish.  This order is precisely "syntax."  A quick analogy is the English language versus the Spanish language.  In English, we typically say "The brown horse..."  In Spanish, the adjective comes after the noun, yielding: "The horse brown..." or "El caballo cafe..."   Whew, those 6 Spanish credits in college are now paying off.  Actually, I recall Spanish coming in handy while vacationing in the Dominican Republic.  The tender of the swim-up bar only spoke Spanish.

First, to learn the syntax of a particular console, consult the user's manual.  After a quick read, you should have a handle on how it operates.  i.e. Delete Cue 26 Enter or Cue 26 Delete.  In order to view the syntax as you push buttons, you must be looking at the Command Line.  How visible the Command Line is depends on the manufacturer of the console, but usually it is on the botton of a screen or can be opened and sometimes moved to a preferred location.  A more obvious, but less informative, way to see the syntax or I should say "mode" is to look for the LED corresponding to the button.  i.e. "Store" or "Record" button will be on or flash when pressed.  This lets the programmer know he has pushed the record button and is waiting for the next step.  Smaller boards which lack a monitor rely on this button identification.  For example, 24-channel 2 scene preset-type boards do not have a monitor but still must be able to communicate to the programmer.  Button LEDs are crucial here.  If you push the Record button, you must know that you are in the Record mode as well as know what/where you can store this item.  i.e. if submasters 1-4 have already been recorded, the desk should communicate that information back to the programmer once the record button has been pressed. 

Good Syntax is simply, you push the correct buttons in the correct order and the board did what you told it.  Good job everyone!  Bad Syntax is the opposite.  You push buttons, unknowly in the wrong order, and the board may or may not do what you wanted if anything at all.  Hopefully there is an "undo" button to fix your mistake.  Helpful Syntax is what I call a nice feature when the board let's you know something isn't right.  There are several different methods for this.  First, is the font color of the syntax.  As you push buttons, the command line is black.  Once you push something that doesn't make sense, the board changes the font to red.  This is an alert that something has gone wrong.  The next method is an audible beep, kindly informing you that the input wasn't received.  The third is similar to text messaging.  If you use a keyboard to type in the command line (rather than button presses), the desk can auto generate the words.  i.e. rather than pushing [record] you start to type r-e-c-o in the command line and the board recognizes, hey this guy wants to record something, so it will fill in the rest for you.  Knowing shortcuts like this can a lot of time. 

In addition to what I call, Helpful Syntax, the command line is extremely useful.  The command line is a history of each syntax entry.  With a quick glance you can see the last several steps.  Sometimes this helps identify what went wrong, or where you stored something, or even what group you are working with.

...to finish about the translator:  in many cases, we the programmers, are the translators.  The lighting designer knows he wants blue this, or lavender that, but doesn't know how the programming lingo.  Therefore the lighting designer communicates to the programmer (in english) and then programmer translates it to the syntax to the board.