[timtadh]

Actually, Assembly is sometimes called Mnemonic Assembly. Mnemonic roughly means "a device such as a pattern of letters, ideas, or associations that assists in remembering something." Assembly was developed to help humans write machine code more easily. It is machine code that is not for humans. Assembly certainly is. (Although, as a historical note, humans have often written raw machine code in a number ways, including toggling it in via switches)