I just took a quick look in the OED - which for those of us in the UK is the definitive reference dictionary anyway here is the entry: Unix, n. Computing. (ju:niks) Also UNIX. [f. as a play on the earlier *MULTICS n., with uni- one for multi- many (after the relative compactness of the newer system) and with phonetic respelling of -ics as -ix.] A proprietary name for a multi-user operating system orig. designed for use with minicomputers. 1973 Bell Lab. Rec. LI. 200 Some of the concepts, especially for file-handling, appeared in a time-shared operating system called UNIX, which was designed and implemented at Bell Labs. 1978 Bell Syst. Techn. Jrnl. LVII. 1991 C..is sufficiently expressive and efficient to have completely displaced assembly language programming on UNIX. 1983 Austral. Personal Computer Aug. 66/2 Xenix, the Microsoft implementation of Unix disk operating systems for microcomputers. 1985 Official Gaz. (U.S. Patent Office) 29 Oct. TM63/1 UNIX...For computer programs... First use 12-14-1972. 1986 Trade Marks Jrnl. 5 Mar. 522/2 Unix..Computer programmes, computing apparatus; [etc.] 1989 N.Y. Times 25 Oct. D1/4 A wider industry agreement on a single Unix standard would also increase the possibility that Unix will be widely adopted in the business computer market. NOTE: I had to tweak the pronunciation a tad to work in plain text. :-) I guess if Ken/Dennis think that it needs correcting in any way they will need to contact the OED... --Paul --yays for academic access to the OED