• missfrizzle@discuss.tchncs.de
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    7 hours ago

    icons are basically ideograms. floppy disks might be the etymology of the save icon, but kids will learn it means “save” the same way Chinese kids learn that 人 means “person” (a simplified rendering of the original Bone Oracle glyph, which depicted a person from the side)

    as another example, you used the word “inundated” which comes from the Latin unda meaning “wave,” as in waves overcoming a building. but you learned to use that word without needing the history lesson behind it.

    • Jerkface@lemmy.world
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      6 hours ago

      Sure, except when they don’t. Like what happened with that dev on that board in 2010.

      • potpotato@lemmy.world
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        5 hours ago

        How do play, pause, or stop icons mean anything? They were around for decades before me and I just learned that was how those actions were communicated.

        • Jerkface@lemmy.world
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          4 hours ago

          Likely in the way that the previous commenter described. They’re not wrong, it just wasn’t a question of how. It was more that sometimes the transmission of information fails.