Cfxtrjtrk

For example, does putting one's initials before the name of a copied document count as "appending" one's initials to the name of the document? I know there is a word called "prepend," but it is uncommon.

The word "acceleration" refers to both positive and negative acceleration, while "deceleration" refers only to the latter. Does append work in this manner too?

I take your question to be about how one ought to use the word
append. Now, if you believe one ought to use it according to a
dictionary one trusts, then I suggest you look in a dictionary you
trust.

If you think the history of the word has some relevance, you may
consider that, etymologically, appending (ad-pendere) means hanging
(pendere) something onto (ad) something. From this perspective, the
word contains no information about whether the appended is appended to
the beginning or end. Prepending comes from computing and is an
attempt to introduce the distinction whereby things are appended to ends
and prepended to beginnings.

I wouldn't use append in the situation you describe. Outside of
computing, appending seems to connote a more substantial object than a
couple of letters.

If you are unimpressed by etymology, see the OED. There is no mention
of any end:

# append, v.2



Pronunciation:



Brit. /əˈpɛnd/



U.S. /əˈpɛnd/



Etymology:  < (perhaps through modern French append-re ) Latin appendĕre to

hang to. In form the same word as append v.1, re-adopted from Latin or French

in the transitive sense of appendĕre, after the append v.1 had been long

obsolete.



### 1. To hang on, to attach as a pendant.



1646  Sir T. Browne Pseudodoxia Epidemica ii. v,  If amulets do work by

emanations from their bodies upon those parts wherunto they are appended .



1834  T. Carlyle Sartor Resartus ii. iii. 37/1  A Conquering Hero, to whom

Fate..has malignantly appended a tin kettle of Ambition.



### 2. To attach, join on, annex, as an accessory either material or

attributive.



1781  Johnson Shenstone in Pref. Wks. Eng. Poets X. 1  Hales-Owen..in the

division of the kingdom, was appended..to a distant county.



1835  J. Harris Great Teacher (1837) 382  One thing to which everything else

desirable is appended.



1863  F. A. Kemble Jrnl. Resid. Georgian Plantation 34  The purposes for

which hands and arms were appended to our bodies.



### 3. To add in writing by way of supplement or appendix.



1843  J. S. Mill Syst. Logic I. ii. iii. §8  Some additional remarks..are

appended.



1879  F. W. Farrar Life & Work St. Paul I. Pref. p. ix,  To append notes to

the more difficult expressions.

One may think that this is all irrelevant, but none of the commenters
has provided any argument why one's normative principles are not a
matter of taste. They insist that the meaning of a word is determined
by avarage current usage, but say nothing convincing as to why one
ought to care more about avarage current usage than etymology.