The author says 'after 10 years' with HTML, which isn't very long.

Ask someone working in hypertext long enough to know what VERONICA stands for -- they'll know what HREF means!

But funny you mention Wikipedia. Looks like it has the answer:

> with the attribute "href" (HREF is an abbreviation for "Hypertext REFerence"[3])

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperlink

> [3] Tim Berners-Lee, Making a Server ("HREF" is for "hypertext reference")

http://www.w3.org/Provider/ServerWriter.html