4 ms·
On the other hand, trying too hard to shoehorn semantic descriptions on names ends up with pathological cases (yes, chemistry, I’m looking at you!). Jokes apar
by harperlee 2y ago
On the other hand, trying too hard to shoehorn semantic descriptions on names ends up with pathological cases (yes, chemistry, I’m looking at you!).
Jokes apart, words are symbols that even if they have some semantics through etymology, in general they are quite arbitrary. I’d rather go with outlandish names that help mnemonics, if I were to choose. Names from people can serve that purpose; I still remember what a Kohonen map is, back from Uni, because of the childish resemblance with “cohone” (Andalusian for cojones), and a silly joke from a close friend.
- threatofrain 2y agoBut if we choose words that are famous names, they are far less likely to be systematically used as a building block. And woe be to us if that individual invents too many things, because then the meaning of their name will be too ambiguous.
- __MatrixMan__ 2y agoThere's no winning with chemistry. It's either 2-ethyl-cis-alpha-nonsenium, or it's "the sonic hedgehog domain". It's like you get a choice between math hell or cartoon hell.