I wasn't directly involved in this, but I do remember Dennis telling me essentially the same story. I don't recall him mentioning Ken's name, just that "we couldn't use od because that was already taken".

Steve B and I had adjacent offices, so I overheard a lot of the discussions about the Bourne shell. The quoting mechanisms, in particular, got a lot of attention, I think to good end. There was a lot more thought there than is evident from the surface...

Steve (not Bourne)

----- Original Message -----
From:
"Norman Wilson" <norman@oclsc.org>

To:
<tuhs@tuhs.org>
Cc:

Sent:
Sun, 08 Jan 2017 21:30:03 -0500
Subject:
Re: [TUHS] Unix stories, Stephen Bourne and IF-FI in C code

Doug McIlroy:

There was some pushback which resulted in the strange compromise
of if-fi, case-esac, do-done. Alas, the details have slipped from
memory. Help, scj?

====

do-od would have required renaming the long-tenured od(1).

I remember a tale--possibly chat in the UNIX Room at one point in
the latter 1980s--that Steve tried and tried and tried to convince
Ken to rename od, in the name of symmetry and elegance. Ken simply
said no, as many times as it took. I don't remember who I heard this
from; anyone still in touch with Ken who can ask him?

Norman Wilson
Toronto ON