Re: terminology

Hakon Lie ([email protected])
Fri, 29 Sep 1995 14:06:08 +0100


This is a summary of responses I got when searching for terminology:

As a replacement for

smallest | smaller | small | normal | large | larger | largest

one person suggested

> 1/ smallest and largest are not relative to anything (IMHO)
> (but smaller and larger are relative). I think you could
> use them, or rather "tinier" and "huger"
>
> 2/ "pico" and "jumbo"
>
> 3/ forge it from a foreign language (italian) :
> "tinissimo" and "hugissimo"
>
> 4/ forge it from "milli" or "micro" and "mega"

I like 3 & 4. [email protected] suggested:

> min | tiny | small | normal | large | huge | max
>
> (Curiously, the number of characters in each name follows a bell curve.)

The last fact obviously makes it more attractive. However, since
numerical values beyond "min" and "max" are allowed (I should ahve
mintioned that) they are misnomers.

Another person had these proposals:

> tiny | small | medium-small | normal | medium-large | large | huge
> or
> tiny | extra-small | small | normal | large | extra-large | huge

The last one is partly based on the clothing size metaphor. There we
have an obvious shortcut:

xxs | xs | s | m | l | xl | xxl

Hmm..

Thanks for helping!

-h&kon

Hakon W Lie, W3C/INRIA, Sophia-Antipolis, France
http://www.w3.org/hypertext/WWW/People/howcome/