"Jay F. Shachter": > First of all, there is nothing "politically correct" about objecting > to the name "the devil himself" for the "daemon" user. The name is > dumb. Putting it into an operating system is something that people do > who are in their twenties, and high on weed (both conditions are > necessary). Grown-ups would say "the user ID of daemon programs like > cron" or words to that effect. Daemons are not demons, which Dennis > Ritchie (or maybe it was Ken Thompson. but I think it was Dennis > Ritchie) knew, which is why he called them daemons. Daemons are not > malevolent spirits. They are more like nature-spirits, neither > malevolent nor benevolent. Conflating them with demons is just dumb.
"Daemon" and "demon" are just spelling variants like encyclop(a)edia, arch(a)eology, p(a)ediatric, etc. This passed from original Greek "ai" (alpha iota) to Latin "ae" to French "e". English originally assimilated Latin and Latinized Greek vocabulary through French and is wavering here between the French and Latin spellings; the English pronunciation reflects the French one as modified by the Great Vowel Shift. -- Christian "naddy" Weisgerber [email protected]
