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As pseudo-elements, :before and :after don't have any real semantic meaning. But yes, it is a complete abuse of pseudo-elements that isn't immediately understandable. There are some more practical and simple pseudo-element hacks too - http://nicolasgallagher.com/multiple-backgrounds-and-borders...

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Eh, some pseudo-elements have semantic meaning. My best example of this would be :link, which distinguishes between hyperlinks and bare anchors. I would typically associate :before with styling that happens visually before an element, and :after the opposite, but they have been both used here to provide for an icon before the element.

:link is a pseudo-class, not a pseudo-element

I stand corrected!

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