Skunks Pick Vegetables Deliberately

I've been designing and programming websites for about six years now and everything I know, I taught myself. But for some reason, I just can't seem to remember all the terminology. Probably, in part, because I work alone, so I rarely have to communicate with others about CSS or XHTML. There is that rare occasion when I do need to explain something (usually to my husband) and it's then that I realize how ridiculous I sound as I try to come up with the words necessary to prove I actually know what I'm talking about. Words like "selector" and "element" and "declaration." Today I decided enough is enough. I'm sick of not being able to communicate my CSS knowledge, so I'm going to use the old school technique of creating an acronym that represents what I want to remember.

First, a quick lesson in CSS for anyone who is curious. According to the w3schools website, "A CSS rule has two main parts: a selector, and one or more declarations." This is what the CSS code looks like:

Typically the selector is an HTML element (a.k.a "tag") that you want to style to look a certain way. In the example above, the "p" element stands for "paragraph." So you're telling your website, "hey, I want to style all paragraphs to show up bold with 12 point text." I'm not sure why you would want to bold all your paragraph text, but now you know how to.

There are three main types of selectors: id, class, and element. "In addition to setting a style for a HTML element, CSS allows you to specify your own selectors called 'id' and 'class.'" You use different selectors depending on what you want to do. "The id selector is used to specify a style for a single, unique element" whereas "The class selector is used to specify a style for a group of elements. Unlike the id selector, the class selector is most often used on several elements."

Like I said, I have trouble keeping all these terms straight. It's ridiculous really. So I'm calling on my old friend "acronym" to help me out. I need to remember that a declaration is made up of a property and its value. And the whole thing styles a specified selector.

And here's how I'm going to remember it:

Anyone else struggle to remember stuff? Everything was so easy to remember when I was a kid. Wish I could reclaim that clarity and memory skill. Speaking of being a kid, stay tuned for a post I'm working on about some of my childhood clothing made by my mom and nana.
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** All quoted text taken from the w3schools website. They're a wealth of knowledge, so check 'em out!