When I enter

<!-- language-all: lang-bash -->

    if :; then echo "quoted"; fi

in a post on main, the output looks like this:

Here on meta, the very same code gets no syntax highlighting at all:

if :; then echo "quoted"; fi

I already tried every possible combination from language: bash to said language-all: lang-bash without any avail. As the last paragraphs in this post by Eliah Kagan shows, I’m not the only one who is bothered by this – I think we all agree syntax highlighting is very useful.

Could you shed some light on whether that’s actually a bug or rather status-bydesign?
If it’s the latter:

• What are the precise reasons this decision was made?
• Can we have a discussion on that?