*BSD News Article 83105


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From: jeverett@wwa.com (John Everett)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.misc,comp.unix.bsd.misc,alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: On the Naming of UNIX Things
Date: 17 Nov 1996 16:32:26 GMT
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In article <56n415$5k6@news.ece.nwu.edu>, bonomi@eecs.nwu.edu says...
>
>In article <328bb47a.2221749@news.msn.fullfeed.com>, 
>Jay.Jaeger@msn.fullfeed.com says...
>cording to whom?  The dictionary I ahve lists the pronunciation as
>>dEmen  (long E).  However, I know lots of would be Unix hacks who, for
>>some reason, think it should be pronounced dAmen (long A).  Or is this
>>one of those British English vs. US English debates?
>
>Neither.  In the _context- of "Operating systems design" and utilities
>discussions, it is traditionally prounounced "day-mon".  Specifically
>do distinguish it from 'demon'.   This is -not- unique to UNIX, and can
>be found in several O/S's that predate it --  e.g. TOPS (-10 or -20), 
MULTICS,
>just to name a couple..
>

What a load of rubbish! As a former member of the PDP-10 Monitor (later 
called TOPS-10) development group, and author of significant parts of DAEMON, 
let me again state categorically that we pronounced it "deemon". Again let me 
state that this use predates UNIX by several years. When those of us 
in the monitor group attended DECUS conferences we invariably discovered that 
some customer sites had taken to calling it "daymon", an error we took pains 
to correct.

While it may be true that in the _context- of "Operating systems design" and 
utilities discussions, it is traditionally prounounced(sic) "day-mon"; those 
of us actually engaged in operating systems and utilities design and 
implementation in the late 60s and early 70s pronounced it "deemon".

-- 
jeverett@wwa.com (John V. Everett)