As a Vim user I would agree with what you've said. I would add that a lot of the terminology would have made more sense back when it was introduced, and at that time the other now-common versions weren't nearly as common. I think an effort to use both the Vim terminology, and the common terminology that people would be most-familiar with would be good. If it said "yanking (copying)" and "redraw the cursor (scroll the screen relative to the cursor)" it would be obvious.
Also, I think `z` is a fairly bad example, because nothing really starts with `z` and in some ways it's just a hodgepodge of different things that needed keys (`z` is of course not the only key like this).
`y` for example is used for everything related to yanking. `p` for everything related to pasting. `i` for insert mode. `v` for visual mode. `c` for change, `d` for delete, `w` for word. There's other various examples I'm sure, but most of the basic usage of Vim (besides, perhaps, `hjkl`) all maps to fairly easy to remember keys once you do it a few times and understand what they stand for.
Also, I think `z` is a fairly bad example, because nothing really starts with `z` and in some ways it's just a hodgepodge of different things that needed keys (`z` is of course not the only key like this).
`y` for example is used for everything related to yanking. `p` for everything related to pasting. `i` for insert mode. `v` for visual mode. `c` for change, `d` for delete, `w` for word. There's other various examples I'm sure, but most of the basic usage of Vim (besides, perhaps, `hjkl`) all maps to fairly easy to remember keys once you do it a few times and understand what they stand for.