Let's say you want to print something, all you need to do is pop open the menu and can quickly scan for the printer icon which is a recognizable shape.
Without the icon, you have to consciously read the lines in the menu to make sure you are clicking on the right one.
You still read the text with the printer icon, but it's a faster index-match when the icon is present.
I understand that costs some milliseconds and distraction and might be inferior GUI in many situations, but calling it a "struggle" seems like a large exaggeration, especially for the HN crowd which probably just presses CTRL+P.
Notice: cjk languages often need 3+ key stroke to type a single character.(and sometimes need two more to select the right character). Or you need to remember random letter unrelated to its display name in order to pop it up with one key stroke. It's NOT really a proper alternative. I really hate about the Western centered design firefox introduced in the latest several iterations. It really makes using firefox so painful that I decide to change it on my own using userChrome.css.
Now add to it people that use machines with different language settings. On my own devices English, but clients provide clients in German, Italian or Dutch. With icons and limited language skills it did not matter. But finding the item without exactly knowing what term is used is really frustrating.
