I think the author makes a hard distinction between consumer products and infrastructure/engineering products. The Shelby Cobra has a funny name, but its engine is the memorably named V8. The Hoover Dam is a dam, and the Golden Gate Bridge is a bridge.
We can argue about namespace pollution and overly long names, but I think there's a point there. When I look at other profession's jargon, I never have the impression they are catching Pokemon like programmers do.
Except for the ones with Latin and Greek names, but old mistakes die hard and they're not bragging about their intelligibility.
Yeah, V8 is the shape of the engine - 8 cylinders in two rows offset at an acute angle (i. e. V-shaped). Likewise a V6 has the same number of cylinders as an inline 6 but performs very differently. There's a handful of different engine shapes - I'm fond of the rotary engines used in early aircraft. Traditionally, the name of an engine was just the year, the manufacturer, and the displacement (like 1965 Ford 352). You often leave off the year and even the manufacturer if it's not required by context.
The Ford 351 is a bit special because there were two different engines made by Ford in the same time period with the same displacement, so they tacked on the city they were manufactured in (Windsor or Cleveland).
We can argue about namespace pollution and overly long names, but I think there's a point there. When I look at other profession's jargon, I never have the impression they are catching Pokemon like programmers do.
Except for the ones with Latin and Greek names, but old mistakes die hard and they're not bragging about their intelligibility.