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  len('accessibility') == 13
So a11y stands for "a word starting with 'a' then 11 letters then ending with 'y'".

Compare to i18n, l10n.



I hadn't seen any of these before, and the first word I found for i18n was "iodochlorhydroxyquin". Seemed somewhat unlikely.


Wow, I'm amazed that any HN reader has not seen at least K8s for Kubernetes before... still, xkcd 10,000 strikes again.


I assumed "k8s" was so named by skipping out the syllables "ubern" and slightly mangling the rest.

Fortunately I work in the privileged position of never really needing to consider questions of deployment, and I am extremely happy to keep it that way.


internationalization


The use of a11y-style acronyms fails for r9y reasons.


It sucks for onboarding new devs, but I've worked at companies where I did a11y audits for high-traffic e-commerce sites. The the amount of times I didn't have to type those extra 9 letters must have saved months of my life.


Maybe this is just because I learned to touch-type rather early, but (1) typing "accessibility" is far faster than typing "a11y", because it doesn't require reaching as far from the home row and (2) it is rare that the limiting factor is the speed at which keys can be pressed, rather than the speed at which correct and accurate words can be chosen.

Text is meant to be read, and not just written. I'll agree that there are chunking benefits in acronyms and abbreviations when working in a shared context, but outside of those shared contexts, the abbreviations severely impede communication.




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