8 ms·

Origin Of The Abbreviation I18n (2002)

50 points by DonHopkins 4y ago

hollymadison 4y ago
reiwa is a bad viral computer program that is too innocent and not true in any way
timpark 4y ago
Numeronyms like i18n and a11y are things I'd seen from time to time, but not in a sufficiently interesting or relevant context for me to figure out what they meant, until one day I finally looked them up. Then, just for fun, I made this page: https://www.timpark.org/n10e-s2e-t2t/ https://www.timpark.org/n10e-s2e-t2t/ (numeronymize some text)
dang 4y ago
Related: Origin of the Abbreviation 'i18n' - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21634535 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21634535 - Nov 2019 (1 comment) Origin Of The Abbreviation I18n For "Internationalization" - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5235071 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5235071 - Feb 2013 (14 comments)
jmount 4y ago
Always hated that abbreviation. I feel the disrespect to the reader in being unwilling to write out a word (instead of an acronym) really makes one wonder about actual commitment to communication. I mean why translate if one can just use gibberish?
- frosted-flakes 4y ago
  It's not supposed to be user-facing though, is it? If you have a code library for translating text and such, calling it I18n makes more sense than Internationalization in that context because Internationalization is just too long.
  - thanatropism 4y ago
    k8s, though?
- copperx 4y ago
  It's a matter of taste, and I find it horrible. It's also hard to type, compared to just letters. I get it that internationalization is too long, but what was so wrong with using intl or something similar?
  - tsuujin 4y ago
    Because it could be intentional or international or initial or intel, as well. Numeronyms are like icons, they’re useful because they’re distinctive and unique.
- DonHopkins 4y ago
  And the shorter the words, the bigger a F2K Y1U it is to the reader.
- stkdump 4y ago
  I don't know. I am not a native speaker, but I think it is ok, maybe even better. We have gotten used to 'OK', despite its questionable origin (or origin story).
- simonbarker87 4y ago
  Agreed, and I also hate a11y for “accessibility” as I think it is quite inaccessible when you first come across it and really it only exists because the writer can’t remember the number of c and s letters.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
DonHopkins 4y ago
In the Unix Haters X-Windows Disaster chapter I bullshat a joke about the horribly complex ICCCM manual ("Inter-Client Communication Conventions Manual”) being called “I39L”, which was just meant to make fun of how ridiculously long its name was (which should warn you about its complexity), but I had actually heard other people call it “Ice Cubed” before (the lethal weapon!), so I wasn’t making that part up. But somebody took my bullshit joke at face value, and put the X-Windows Disaster chapter as a citation in the ICCCM wikipedia page! And also a redirect from “Ice Cubed” to "Inter-Client Communication Conventions Manual”. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inter-Client_Communication_Conventions_Manual https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inter-Client_Communication_Con... >In computing, the Inter-Client Communication Conventions Manual (ICCCM or I39L short for "I", 39 letters and "L")[1] is a standard protocol for the X Window System. It specifies conventions for clients of a common X server about selections and cut buffers, communication with the window manager and session manager, manipulation of shared resources, and color characterization. [2] The X-Windows Disaster chapter of the Unix-Haters Handbook: http://www.art.net/~hopkins/Don/unix-haters/x-windows/disaster.html http://www.art.net/~hopkins/Don/unix-haters/x-windows/disast... >Ice Cube: The Lethal Weapon >One of the fundamental design goals of X was to separate the window manager from the window server. "Mechanism, not policy" was the mantra. That is, the X server provided a mechanism for drawing on the screen and managing windows, but did not implement a particular policy for human-computer interaction. While this might have seemed like a good idea at the time (especially if you are in a research community, experimenting with different approaches for solving the human-computer interaction problem), it can create a veritable user interface Tower of Babel. >If you sit down at a friend's Macintosh, with its single mouse button, you can use it with no problems. If you sit down at a friend's Windows box, with two buttons, you can use it, again with no problems. But just try making sense of a friend's X terminal: three buttons, each one programmed a different way to perform a different function on each different day of the week -- and that's before you consider combinations like control-left-button, shift-right-button, control-shift-meta-middle-button, and so on. Things are not much better from the programmer's point of view. >As a result, one of the most amazing pieces of literature to come out of the X Consortium is the "Inter Client Communication Conventions Manual," more fondly known as the "ICCCM", "Ice Cubed," or "I39L" (short for "I, 39 letters, L"). It describes protocols that X clients ust use to communicate with each other via the X server, including diverse topics like window management, selections, keyboard and colormap focus, and session management. In short, it tries to cover everything the X designers forgot and tries to fix everything they got wrong. But it was too late -- by the time ICCCM was published, people were already writing window managers and toolkits, so each new version of the ICCCM was forced to bend over backwards to be backward compatible with the mistakes of the past. >The ICCCM is unbelievably dense, it must be followed to the last letter, and it still doesn't work. ICCCM compliance is one of the most complex ordeals of implementing X toolkits, window managers, and even simple applications. It's so difficult, that many of the benefits just aren't worth the hassle of compliance. And when one program doesn't comply, it screws up other programs. This is the reason cut-and-paste never works properly with X (unless you are cutting and pasting straight ASCII text), drag-and-drop locks up the system, colormaps flash wildly and are never installed at the right time, keyboard focus lags behind the cursor, keys go to the wrong window, and deleting a popup window can quit the whole application. If you want to write an interoperable ICCCM compliant application, you have to crossbar test it with every other application, and with all possible window managers, and then plead with the vendors to fix their problems in the next release. >In summary, ICCCM is a technological disaster: a toxic waste dump of broken protocols, backward compatibility nightmares, complex nonsolutions to obsolete nonproblems, a twisted mass of scabs and scar tissue intended to cover up the moral and intellectual depravity of the industry's standard naked emperor. >Using these toolkits is like trying to make a bookshelf out of mashed potatoes. - Jamie Zawinski
obventio56 4y ago
Was this the first example of this style of abbreviation? Was a16z consciously inspired by I18n?
- sandkoan 4y ago
  I recall Ben Horowitz saying a16z was a conscious nod to i18n in some interviews.
- tsuujin 4y ago
  According to chatgpt: > It is difficult to determine the exact first recorded numeronym, as they have likely been used informally for many years. However, one of the earliest known examples of a numeronym is the word "K9", which is a numeronym for "canine". It is believed that the term was first used by the United States military during World War II, as a way to refer to dogs that were used in military operations. The "K" represents the first letter of "canine", and the "9" represents the nine letters that follow it. Since then, numeronyms have become more common, especially in the technology and business industries. I love how confident ChatGPT is in its incorrectness. When I pointed out that there are only 6 letters in the word canine, and that it starts with a “c” it responded with: > I apologize for the error in my previous response. You are correct that "canine" only has six letters and it starts with a "C". The numeronym "K9" represents the word "canine" by using the "K" to represent the sound of the first letter, "C", and "9" to represent the number of letters between "C" and "E". Which is just amazing. Whole lotta letters between c and e apparently.
  - taeric 4y ago
    I should have realized you were quoting a bot, but my mind was literally contorting itself to figure out how that was accurate. :D It felt like the eyeballs of my brain were quite literally full open and blinking in confusion.
RobotToaster 4y ago
My "favourite" one of those weird abbreviations is a11y, because rather ironically it's bad for screen readers.
- edflsafoiewq 4y ago
  Doesn't seem any worse for screen readers than for the rest of us.
- tough 4y ago
  I read it as ally tho
  - OJFord 4y ago
    A screen reader won't 'tho', and even if it did, that's not better?
- MrVandemar 4y ago
  Wouldn't wrapping it in <abbr> tags fix the problem?
soneca 4y ago
Can someone please explain to me why “411” means “information”?
- surteen 4y ago
  In the US, this was the standard phone number to dial to connect to an operator-assisted (and later automated) information lookup, such as "get me the number of so-and-so in such-and-such city and state". Personally I haven't needed to use it since probably the 1990s.
  - brookst 4y ago
    Expanding, US phone numbers are xxx-yyy-zzzz, where x is area code, y is prefix, and z is number. It used to be that you did not have to dial the area code if you were calling a number in your same area code. So if your phone number was 415-591-0726 and you were calling 415-327-0914, you could omit the "415" part. The prefixes ?11 were reserved: 911 for emergency, 411 for directory information, 611 for telephone company support, 711 for TDD / relay for the deaf, then 511 for road conditions I think, and then 811 for "call before you dig", aka please don't backhoe our fiber optics.
    - ElevenLathe 4y ago
      Many cities now also have a 311 service as a kind of non-emergency municipal call center for things like paying parking tickets or reporting potholes. My favorite use of this was in the early 2000s when it was used to trace the source of the mysterious "maple syrup events" in New York. People were encouraged to call 311 the moment they smelled the maple syrup odor and give the operator their location. By plotting the times and locations, they were able to trace it to a factory in New Jersey that was making artificial maple syrup flavoring from fenugreek seeds: https://web.archive.org/web/20190208102307/http://gothamist.com/2019/02/05/maple_syrup_smell_ten_years_nyc.php https://web.archive.org/web/20190208102307/http://gothamist....
    - icedchai 4y ago
      Used to be? 7 digit dialing still exists in many areas.
ajnin 4y ago
I think the French k7 is because "k-sept" sounds exactly like "cassette". The fact that the number of letters match is just a coincidence.

50 points by DonHopkins 4y ago

reiwa is a bad viral computer program that is too innocent and not true in any way

Numeronyms like i18n and a11y are things I'd seen from time to time, but not in a sufficiently interesting or relevant context for me to figure out what they meant, until one day I finally looked them up. Then, just for fun, I made this page: https://www.timpark.org/n10e-s2e-t2t/ https://www.timpark.org/n10e-s2e-t2t/ (numeronymize some text)

dang 4y ago

Related: Origin of the Abbreviation 'i18n' - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21634535 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21634535 - Nov 2019 (1 comment) Origin Of The Abbreviation I18n For "Internationalization" - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5235071 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5235071 - Feb 2013 (14 comments)

jmount 4y ago

Always hated that abbreviation. I feel the disrespect to the reader in being unwilling to write out a word (instead of an acronym) really makes one wonder about actual commitment to communication. I mean why translate if one can just use gibberish?

frosted-flakes 4y ago
It's not supposed to be user-facing though, is it? If you have a code library for translating text and such, calling it I18n makes more sense than Internationalization in that context because Internationalization is just too long.
- thanatropism 4y ago
  k8s, though?
copperx 4y ago
It's a matter of taste, and I find it horrible. It's also hard to type, compared to just letters. I get it that internationalization is too long, but what was so wrong with using intl or something similar?
- tsuujin 4y ago
  Because it could be intentional or international or initial or intel, as well. Numeronyms are like icons, they’re useful because they’re distinctive and unique.
DonHopkins 4y ago
And the shorter the words, the bigger a F2K Y1U it is to the reader.
stkdump 4y ago
I don't know. I am not a native speaker, but I think it is ok, maybe even better. We have gotten used to 'OK', despite its questionable origin (or origin story).
simonbarker87 4y ago
Agreed, and I also hate a11y for “accessibility” as I think it is quite inaccessible when you first come across it and really it only exists because the writer can’t remember the number of c and s letters.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

DonHopkins 4y ago

In the Unix Haters X-Windows Disaster chapter I bullshat a joke about the horribly complex ICCCM manual ("Inter-Client Communication Conventions Manual”) being called “I39L”, which was just meant to make fun of how ridiculously long its name was (which should warn you about its complexity), but I had actually heard other people call it “Ice Cubed” before (the lethal weapon!), so I wasn’t making that part up. But somebody took my bullshit joke at face value, and put the X-Windows Disaster chapter as a citation in the ICCCM wikipedia page! And also a redirect from “Ice Cubed” to "Inter-Client Communication Conventions Manual”. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inter-Client_Communication_Conventions_Manual https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inter-Client_Communication_Con... >In computing, the Inter-Client Communication Conventions Manual (ICCCM or I39L short for "I", 39 letters and "L")[1] is a standard protocol for the X Window System. It specifies conventions for clients of a common X server about selections and cut buffers, communication with the window manager and session manager, manipulation of shared resources, and color characterization. [2] The X-Windows Disaster chapter of the Unix-Haters Handbook: http://www.art.net/~hopkins/Don/unix-haters/x-windows/disaster.html http://www.art.net/~hopkins/Don/unix-haters/x-windows/disast... >Ice Cube: The Lethal Weapon >One of the fundamental design goals of X was to separate the window manager from the window server. "Mechanism, not policy" was the mantra. That is, the X server provided a mechanism for drawing on the screen and managing windows, but did not implement a particular policy for human-computer interaction. While this might have seemed like a good idea at the time (especially if you are in a research community, experimenting with different approaches for solving the human-computer interaction problem), it can create a veritable user interface Tower of Babel. >If you sit down at a friend's Macintosh, with its single mouse button, you can use it with no problems. If you sit down at a friend's Windows box, with two buttons, you can use it, again with no problems. But just try making sense of a friend's X terminal: three buttons, each one programmed a different way to perform a different function on each different day of the week -- and that's before you consider combinations like control-left-button, shift-right-button, control-shift-meta-middle-button, and so on. Things are not much better from the programmer's point of view. >As a result, one of the most amazing pieces of literature to come out of the X Consortium is the "Inter Client Communication Conventions Manual," more fondly known as the "ICCCM", "Ice Cubed," or "I39L" (short for "I, 39 letters, L"). It describes protocols that X clients ust use to communicate with each other via the X server, including diverse topics like window management, selections, keyboard and colormap focus, and session management. In short, it tries to cover everything the X designers forgot and tries to fix everything they got wrong. But it was too late -- by the time ICCCM was published, people were already writing window managers and toolkits, so each new version of the ICCCM was forced to bend over backwards to be backward compatible with the mistakes of the past. >The ICCCM is unbelievably dense, it must be followed to the last letter, and it still doesn't work. ICCCM compliance is one of the most complex ordeals of implementing X toolkits, window managers, and even simple applications. It's so difficult, that many of the benefits just aren't worth the hassle of compliance. And when one program doesn't comply, it screws up other programs. This is the reason cut-and-paste never works properly with X (unless you are cutting and pasting straight ASCII text), drag-and-drop locks up the system, colormaps flash wildly and are never installed at the right time, keyboard focus lags behind the cursor, keys go to the wrong window, and deleting a popup window can quit the whole application. If you want to write an interoperable ICCCM compliant application, you have to crossbar test it with every other application, and with all possible window managers, and then plead with the vendors to fix their problems in the next release. >In summary, ICCCM is a technological disaster: a toxic waste dump of broken protocols, backward compatibility nightmares, complex nonsolutions to obsolete nonproblems, a twisted mass of scabs and scar tissue intended to cover up the moral and intellectual depravity of the industry's standard naked emperor. >Using these toolkits is like trying to make a bookshelf out of mashed potatoes. - Jamie Zawinski

obventio56 4y ago

Was this the first example of this style of abbreviation? Was a16z consciously inspired by I18n?

sandkoan 4y ago
I recall Ben Horowitz saying a16z was a conscious nod to i18n in some interviews.
tsuujin 4y ago
According to chatgpt: > It is difficult to determine the exact first recorded numeronym, as they have likely been used informally for many years. However, one of the earliest known examples of a numeronym is the word "K9", which is a numeronym for "canine". It is believed that the term was first used by the United States military during World War II, as a way to refer to dogs that were used in military operations. The "K" represents the first letter of "canine", and the "9" represents the nine letters that follow it. Since then, numeronyms have become more common, especially in the technology and business industries. I love how confident ChatGPT is in its incorrectness. When I pointed out that there are only 6 letters in the word canine, and that it starts with a “c” it responded with: > I apologize for the error in my previous response. You are correct that "canine" only has six letters and it starts with a "C". The numeronym "K9" represents the word "canine" by using the "K" to represent the sound of the first letter, "C", and "9" to represent the number of letters between "C" and "E". Which is just amazing. Whole lotta letters between c and e apparently.
- taeric 4y ago
  I should have realized you were quoting a bot, but my mind was literally contorting itself to figure out how that was accurate. :D It felt like the eyeballs of my brain were quite literally full open and blinking in confusion.

RobotToaster 4y ago

My "favourite" one of those weird abbreviations is a11y, because rather ironically it's bad for screen readers.

edflsafoiewq 4y ago
Doesn't seem any worse for screen readers than for the rest of us.
tough 4y ago
I read it as ally tho
- OJFord 4y ago
  A screen reader won't 'tho', and even if it did, that's not better?
MrVandemar 4y ago
Wouldn't wrapping it in <abbr> tags fix the problem?

soneca 4y ago

Can someone please explain to me why “411” means “information”?

surteen 4y ago
In the US, this was the standard phone number to dial to connect to an operator-assisted (and later automated) information lookup, such as "get me the number of so-and-so in such-and-such city and state". Personally I haven't needed to use it since probably the 1990s.
- brookst 4y ago
  Expanding, US phone numbers are xxx-yyy-zzzz, where x is area code, y is prefix, and z is number. It used to be that you did not have to dial the area code if you were calling a number in your same area code. So if your phone number was 415-591-0726 and you were calling 415-327-0914, you could omit the "415" part. The prefixes ?11 were reserved: 911 for emergency, 411 for directory information, 611 for telephone company support, 711 for TDD / relay for the deaf, then 511 for road conditions I think, and then 811 for "call before you dig", aka please don't backhoe our fiber optics.
  - ElevenLathe 4y ago
    Many cities now also have a 311 service as a kind of non-emergency municipal call center for things like paying parking tickets or reporting potholes. My favorite use of this was in the early 2000s when it was used to trace the source of the mysterious "maple syrup events" in New York. People were encouraged to call 311 the moment they smelled the maple syrup odor and give the operator their location. By plotting the times and locations, they were able to trace it to a factory in New Jersey that was making artificial maple syrup flavoring from fenugreek seeds: https://web.archive.org/web/20190208102307/http://gothamist.com/2019/02/05/maple_syrup_smell_ten_years_nyc.php https://web.archive.org/web/20190208102307/http://gothamist....
  - icedchai 4y ago
    Used to be? 7 digit dialing still exists in many areas.

ajnin 4y ago

I think the French k7 is because "k-sept" sounds exactly like "cassette". The fact that the number of letters match is just a coincidence.