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Path: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au!newshost.carno.net.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!munnari.OZ.AU!news.Hawaii.Edu!news.uoregon.edu!arclight.uoregon.edu!feed1.news.erols.com!howland.erols.net!vixen.cso.uiuc.edu!newsrelay.iastate.edu!news.iastate.edu!rhawkins 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 Lines: 33 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> NNTP-Posting-Host: pv217a.vincent.iastate.edu Xref: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au comp.unix.misc:26215 comp.unix.bsd.misc:1449 alt.folklore.computers:124279 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.