Re: [xml-dev] Where does the term "element" come from?

[Liam Quin <liam@w3.org>]

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/