The mouse over doesn’t work with the embedded image. Mouse over should display:
“The cycle seems to be ‘we need these symbols to clarify what types of things we’re referring to!’ followed by ‘wait, it turns out words already do that.'”
Could it be that computer languages are pigdin languages? Languages that lack the richness of natural languages? That could explain the duplication of some symbols. 😉
I first saw this at Greg Linden’s Quick links, January 2, 2014.