[dmoy]

I did a bunch of stuff with PID back in the day, but honestly this is the first time I'm forcing my brain to look at the word "absement" to describe the integral portion. Looking back, I must have encountered the word many times in the past, but my brain just didn't process the label. I mentally knew and fully understood the concept, and did code / systems implementation involving it, but never really knew the term.

I also distinctly remember being about to go into an exam in undergrad EE, and having a decades-older MechE ask if I knew about "jerk". I had a temporary panic because I didn't know the term - but then when they started explaining it, I already knew it all, I just had never been exposed to the term "jerk" as the word to use for it.

So maybe it's just a terminology thing? I've been in situations where I definitely knew the concept thoroughly, both absement and jerk, but didn't know those labels.

[basil-rash]

The funny thing is I’m almost certain everyone here has been exposed to the term “jerk”, in the exact technical meaning, but didn’t make the relation that the colloquial meaning and the technical meaning are the same.

Acceleration feels like a constant force (because… it is). When that force changes, you feel “jerked”.