The Terms
- integer, ("ɪntɪdʒə(r)), a. and n.
- B. n.
- 1. Math. A number or quantity denoting one or more whole things or units; a whole number or undivided quantity. Opp. to fraction.
- 2. …
- 3. gen.(often with allusion to 1): A whole or entire thing or entity, either as complete in itself, or as the sum of its parts or elements.
- noun, /naʊn/, n.
- 1. A word used as the name or designation of a person, place, or thing; the class or category of such words. In early use freq. with qualifying adjective, as noun essential, etc. Cf. noun substantive n.
But Why?
For some time Web 2.0 entities have used the integer plural‐noun convention for naming (e.g. 9rules, 7dots, 16bugs, etc.). Jason Huggins has suggested in The Real Definition of Web 2.0
that in being Web 2.0 Your website must fit the following form:
While this convention was already widely used, and known, Jason was to my knowledge the first to codify it as such. This tickled my fancy, and some other folks seemed amused as well, so I thought I ought to do something with it. Now the only question is, what?
<integer><plural-noun>.com
.
But it's supposed to be integer plural‐noun. You're just integer noun. You've gone and screwed it up.
Not so. Integer noun rolls off the tongue a bit more smoothly than integer plural‐noun, and it makes for fewer key strokes in the address bar in your browser. So it's better from a user perspective. From a linguistic and technical perspective, plural nouns are a subset of nouns, so I'm covered that way. Abstracting things any further than this (for instance, simply being noun‐noun, since integers are nouns) would reduce the meaning.
Definitions courtesy of The Oxford English Dictionary