We should not put everything in the same bag !! "strange," "charm," "beauty" and even "quark" itself are beautiful and poetic names to refer to objects or concepts which precisely we do not want to associate any precise meaning in everyday language, and on the other hand, the objects or concepts are introduced whith those names. "prone/supine" are all the contrary, they intent to reflect in everyday language just one aspect of an existing concept which has many, and more important, they are used in place of a well stablished name. all this has nothing to do with "young field" as opposed to "mature subject" silly names (if any) in physics would be as bad as in any other subject do not confuse things, I found the "Scott is sober" an exelent example of humor that does not undermine respect for the field. Another exelent example that comes to my mind is M. Barr's "The point of the empty set" edubuc
Without taking sides on the prone/supine terminology question, I do have a strong reaction to the Benabou/May/Dubuc concern that respect for a field is undermined by its adoption of frivolous terminology.
This may be a valid concern for a young field like category theory, but for a more mature subject such as physics, a more relevant concern is the undermining of the ability to poke fun at oneself by the fear of not being taken seriously.
Has the adoption of frivolous nomenclature for quarks ("strange," "charm," "beauty" and even "quark" itself) diminished in any way the world's respect for quarks and their investigators?
And what of computational topology? Should we turn a blind eye to whether Scott is sober, and substitute a more genteel euphemism for his bottom?
Vaughan Pratt