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Re: Where does the term "element" come from?

• From: Liam Quin <liam@w3.org>
• To: "Costello, Roger L." <costello@mitre.org>
• Date: Thu, 24 Dec 2009 10:45:40 -0500

On Thu, Dec 24, 2009 at 07:27:51AM -0500, Costello, Roger L. wrote:
> This is a book element:
> 
>    <book>...</book>
> 
> Why "element"?
> Who decided to call it element? 

Actually it is because of a transcription error.

Descriptive markup was first used in the 1950s by naturalists
in Africa, and read out loud over the radio to a base station
where they were carefully written down with a pen.

The person at the base station misheard and wrote "element"
instead of "elephant" and the mistake has stuck with us
ever since.

:-)

Liam

-- 
Liam Quin, W3C XML Activity Lead, http://www.w3.org/People/Quin/
http://www.holoweb.net/~liam/ * http://www.fromoldbooks.org/

• Follow-Ups:
  • Re: Where does the term "element" come from?
    • From: Richard Salz <rsalz@us.ibm.com>
  • Re: Where does the term "element" come from?
    • From: Frank Manola <fmanola@acm.org>

• References:
  • Where does the term "element" come from?
    • From: "Costello, Roger L." <costello@mitre.org>