Re: Proposal to improve the nomenclature of scrolling directions

[Stephen J. Turnbull]

Daniel Hackney writes:

 > All of the documentation refers to "movement towards =(point-max)=" as
 > going towards the end or bottom of the buffer/window. It wouldn't make
 > sense to say "scroll up to the end of the window" or "scroll all the way
 > down until you reach the beginning."

The term was earlier used with movie credits (and marquees, in the
horizontal orientation), and I guess it was borrowed from that usage.
There the text clearly scrolls *up* the screen until it reaches the
bottom.  When you read text from a paper scroll, you also are clearly
scrolling *up* in order to read *down* the text.

The reason the phrases you give don't make sense[1] is that the implicit
object of the verb "scroll" has changed from the text (or the scroll
the text is printed on) to something else -- but I wish you luck
coming up with a coherent definition of that object for the phrases
you quote.  Common usage of this term, by any sane measure, is
completely confused.

Nevertheless, common usage is quite consistent, and everybody seems to
know what you mean when "scroll <direction>" is used intransitively.
Language evolution sucks when you're old enough to realize it's
happening! :-)

Footnotes: 
[1]  N.B. In the context of a physical scroll of paper, "scroll all
the way down until you reach the beginning" *does* make sense.