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> The connotations of "toast" as salutation are even worse here;

I don't understand your problem with the concept. It's pretty clear what it means and how it operates, and the UI concept has been extensively disseminated and adopted, not only in web-base UI and UX but also in GUI toolkits for mobile (android) and desktop (Windows 10).

Exactly where are you having problems understanding the concept?



>Exactly where are you having problems understanding the concept?

The concept is fine, I’m sure everyone understands that. The conflict is your assertion that it comes from the meaning related to “a small speech given while raising one’s glass.” It comes from the “bread that has been lightly re-cooked” meaning. Toast notifications would slide up from the bottom of the screen, then sink back down – moving like a piece of bread in a top-loading toaster. (The most common kind, at least in America, at least at the time.) This leads to bad semantics, on the web.

Here’s a citation from 11 years ago describing that: https://www.techrepublic.com/forums/discussions/whats-a-toas... I’m sure it’s even older, but “MSN Messenger” is my oldest personal reference, so I wasn’t sure what else to search for.




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