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The difference is that the words you cited in the HTML spec are all rooted in English vocabulary and words, without modification. Creating an entirely new set o
by Fellshard 5y ago
The difference is that the words you cited in the HTML spec are all rooted in English vocabulary and words, without modification. Creating an entirely new set of vocabulary - not mere jargon, but full-on /new words/ with their own declensions. Those are very different beasts.
- kragen 5y agoThis is true to some extent, although "IDL", "CSSStyleDeclaration", and "HTML" are full-on new words. (None of them have their own declensions because in English only pronouns have irregular declensions.) However, given the choice between naming a new concept with an initialism like "CSS" or "HTML", a standard English word used with a subtly different meaning such as "attribute" or "tumbler", or a totally-made-up word like "granfilade" or "crum", I think the third is by far the least objectionable choice. The unfamiliar word puts you on notice that it names a concept you're unfamiliar with, unlike "style" or "attribute", which you might erroneously think you already understand. In this it is similar to initialisms, but initialisms pose several difficulties to communication: they are awkward to pronounce ("WWW" is nine syllables), have inadvertent collisions with unrelated concepts ("CSS" is also the DVD Content Scrambling System, the Congregation of the Sacred Stigmata, the Colorado Springs School, chirped spread-spectrum radio, and dozens of other things), literarily unevocative, and except for thoroughly assimilated acronyms like "laser", they always make you look like you're shouting. So I don't think it's the nomenclature that accounts for the impenetrability of the text; it's just the unfamiliarity of the concepts it explains.