[csswg-drafts] [css-pseudo] Rename `::postfix` to `::suffix` (#11949)

Loirooriol has just created a new issue for https://github.com/w3c/csswg-drafts:

== [css-pseudo] Rename `::postfix` to `::suffix` ==
https://drafts.csswg.org/css-pseudo-4/#first-letter-pseudo

> To allow independent styling of the [first letter](https://drafts.csswg.org/css-pseudo-4/#first-letter) itself and its adjacent punctuation, associated preceding punctuation is represented by the `::prefix` [sub-pseudo-element](https://drafts.csswg.org/selectors-4/#sub-pseudo-element) of the [`::first-letter`](https://drafts.csswg.org/css-pseudo-4/#selectordef-first-letter) [pseudo-element](https://drafts.csswg.org/selectors-4/#pseudo-element) (`::first-letter::prefix`); and associated following punctuation is represented by the `::postfix` sub-pseudo-element of the ::first-letter pseudo-element (`::first-letter::postfix`).

The naming was resolved in https://github.com/w3c/csswg-drafts/issues/2040#issuecomment-1034039089

> fantasai: Florian suggested ::prefix and ::postfix, which has advantage of being usable on ::marker as well
> fantasai: So wanted to confirm with WG
> dbaron: How understandable would these terms to non-English speakers / other English speakers
> astearns: ...
> dbaron: prefix is much more common than postfix
> plinss: Alternative would be suffix, but postfix has better symmetry
> astearns: Anyone lining up to implement this?
> astearns: Lacking that, I say we go with what's in the draft
> RESOLVED: Accept what's in the draft
> tantek: +1 to suffix. better known term than postfix. usability trumps symmetry

However, as @valtlai mentions in https://github.com/w3c/csswg-drafts/issues/2040#issuecomment-2730440334, using `::postfix` is inconsistent with `@counter-style`, which uses `prefix` and `suffix` descriptors: https://drafts.csswg.org/css-counter-styles-3/#counter-style-suffix

And as @tantek mentioned in the minutes, "suffix" is a much more frequently used word. See [Google Books Ngram Viewer](https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=postfix%2Csuffix&year_start=1800&year_end=2022&corpus=en&smoothing=3):

![](https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/d2e67a39-e6ed-4ef0-a866-81a3385b51d3)

Also [in Spanish](https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=sufijo%2Cpostfijo%2Cposfijo&year_start=1800&year_end=2022&corpus=es&smoothing=3) ("postfijo" and "posfijo" are 3-4 orders of magnitude smaller than "sufijo"):

![](https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/9cd201e7-8632-4bf3-869a-b4a12897ffa5)

So I propose to amend that resolution. AFAIK nobody has implemented these pseudo-elements.


Please view or discuss this issue at https://github.com/w3c/csswg-drafts/issues/11949 using your GitHub account


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Received on Monday, 17 March 2025 19:14:35 UTC