You could say the same thing about double-clicking — what does that 'stand for'? Thankfully, in either case, it really doesn't matter. Both have their advantage

You could say the same thing about double-clicking — what does that 'stand for'? Thankfully, in either case, it really doesn't matter. Both have their advantages and disadvantages, of course. Maybe 'double click a file to open it' is easier to remember than 'ls means show files' but 'when do i double-click and when do I single-click' is notoriously difficult for novice users to remember.