On Sun, Feb 1, 2009 at 8:15 AM, Jon 'maddog' Hall <mad...@li.org> wrote:
> ... note that I spelled UNIX in all capital letters, as it should be ...
Oh, boy. Time for a lame name flame game! :)
"Dennis Ritchie says that the 'UNIX' spelling originally happened in
CACM's 1974 paper _The UNIX Time-Sharing System_ because 'we had a new
typesetter and troff had just been invented and we were intoxicated by
being able to produce small caps.' Later, dmr tried to get the
spelling changed to 'Unix' in a couple of Bell Labs papers, on the
grounds that the word is not acronymic. He failed, and eventually
(his words) 'wimped out' on the issue."
-- "Unix", _The Jargon File_ (http://catb.org/jargon/html/U/Unix.html)
And people think the "Linux" vs "GNU/Linux" lame name flame game is
a new phenomenon. :)
(The irony-challenged should be aware that neither this message, nor
the one I am replying to, constitutes what would generally be
considered a "flame". My use of the word "flame" is ironic here. (My
use of the term "irony" here is in the original sense, i.e., "the use
of words contrary to their literal meaning". (So my use of the word
"irony" is not irony.)) I coined the phrase "lame name flame game"
because it accurately describes the heated arguments that arise over
this sort of thing, and (of course) because it rhymes. My hope is my
ironic usage of "flame" will identify how very seriously I *don't*
take this. (As I have noted in the past, I like overly long and
complicated parenthetical remarks (despite not knowing LISP).) :) )
-- Ben
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