Mnemonics

Not all commands are mnemonic. They tried, but there are more than 26 things you might want to do in a text editor, and the distribution of letters means that not that many words start with a 'q' and happen to be meaningful in editing.

However, many commands are mnemonic.

There are commands for moving Forward, Back, a Word at a time, etc.

A great many are mnemonic if you know the jargon.

Since "copy" and "cut" both start with "c", we have the vernacular of "yank" (for copy), "delete" (for cut), and "put" (for paste). Y, D, P.

It seems a little funky but it is possible to remember these.

Remember, eventually it becomes muscle memory, but the authors of VI and VIM tried not to be arbitrary when it was totally up to them.

Sometimes, there wasn't much of an option.