*BSD News Article 82564


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From: rhawkins@iastate.edu (Rick Hawkins)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.misc,comp.unix.bsd.misc,alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: On the Naming of UNIX Things
Date: 9 Nov 1996 16:44:48 GMT
Organization: Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa USA
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Message-ID: <562ce0$r63@news.iastate.edu>
References: <55vhpf$q3o@mail1.wg.waii.com> <560146$t9c@mail1.wg.waii.com> <E0L92J.4tM@world.std.com>
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In article <E0L92J.4tM@world.std.com>, Jeff DelPapa <dp@world.std.com> wrote:

>The biggest conclusion that you can draw from the oldest of unix
>commands, (cp,rm,ln,cmp, and directories like /tmp /usr) is that the
>original authors were vwl alrgc.

Hey, why type 5 characters when 2 will do?  It saves some memory, but a
lot of typing . . . the people that were using it were also writing it.
Almost all of my aliases (aliae?) and scripts are one or two letters.
If i don't use it often enough to remember whtat it is, it's time for it
to go . . . 

>(or possibly native Check speakers who had vowels, but never wrote
>them down. ex: Plzn, a town famous for its beer. 

They're kind of pathological about those vowels.  Irish (Guiness, et al)
started using unmalted roast barley a couple of centuries ago because it
was the malt, rather than the beer that was taxed; maybe the czechs
taxed vowels :)

When i listed a czech friend in the acknowledgements of the paper
several years ago, it didn't occur to me that the czech & german
spellings would be different.  And then i botched the German.  So
instead of Kutlvasr (4 syllables; 2 vowels!), i came up with something
like cuddelwasser, which was not correct german, either:  instead of
"cool water" it came out "cuddle water".  *sigh*  And this was because
she helped with the editing . . .  

-- 
R E HAWKINS
rhawkins@iastate.edu

These opinions will not be those of ISU until they pay my retainer.