> So if in any given codebase you still have to know the specific meaning of every word, how is it different from having to know specific meaning of every K sym

> So if in any given codebase you still have to know the specific meaning of every word, how is it different from having to know specific meaning of every K symbol? So you never encountered namespaces then? Because that's why you use namespaces. The number of symbols is limited, which is the reason why the whole "a symbol is more explicit"-argument simply doesn't hold in general. It breaks apart pretty quickly. That's why you'll find the following sentence pretty much verbatim in most maths and cs publications: "Throughout this paper, unless otherwise specified, we use the following notations," followed by half a page of definitions. Plot twist: different authors often use different notation even within the same field of research.