[TUHS] pronouncing *nix formulas (was: screen editors)

[Larry McVoy]

That's awesome.  And finger, back in the days of innocence before scammers
and viruses and black hat hackers, was super useful.  I hacked my finger
server to do all sorts of stuff, it was sort of ftp/ps/who and who knows
what else in one.

I miss the days when finger was a thing.  Perhaps poorly named (perhaps
not), whatever, it was simpler time.

On Wed, Feb 05, 2020 at 09:43:33PM -0500, Dan Cross wrote:
> On Wed, Feb 5, 2020 at 5:23 PM Ed Carp <erc at pobox.com> wrote:
> 
> > Sex the UNIX way
> > [...]
> > # finger
> > [...]
> >
> 
> Perhaps I've sent this story to TUHS before, but I can't resist.  "finger:
> the most inappropriately named command in computerdom" (no, that's not a
> challenge...).
> 
> When I was in high school I was stealing, er, I mean, borrowing computer
> time from the local university.  It wasn't quite as criminal as I make it
> sound; I was decently well known around campus, folks tolerated my presence
> admirably and as informal payment for the computer time, I did a lot of
> unpaid sysadmin work.
> 
> Anyway, this was the early 90s and the university was starting to give
> email accounts to pretty much everyone. What this meant was that there was
> a server somewhere running sendmail that accepted incoming mail, and a POP3
> server that you could connect to to download that mail. There were
> self-service computer labs around campus connected to the university
> network, and the `finger` service on the main campus machine was backed by
> a database that responded to a crude, limited query syntax. Notably, you
> could finger your own first and last name (in quotes) and get some data
> about your account, including your login name (most of which were of the
> form abc123 because ... university bureaucracy). However, the university
> wasn't all that great about telling people any of this stuff...word had
> gotten out that everyone had an email account, but not how to go about
> getting your login information, etc. They certainly never mentioned the
> "finger" command.
> 
> Of course, among the computer types, using 'finger' was par for the course.
> "Hey, you going to be online later?" "Yeah, just finger me over at the math
> department." Etc.
> 
> One day I was hanging around near the helpdesk when a young woman, a
> graduate student, came in to ask about her account details. The student on
> duty at the time, in a very helpful, cheerful voice said, "oh, that's easy!
> Just finger yourself!" (Oh context, you are everything...).
> 
> Jaws dropped. Stunned silence ensued. The student working the helpdesk,
> suddenly looking approximately like he might die, managed to awkwardly
> stammer out something about "the the the finger command" and "I mean, uh,
> I'm not saying that YOU should, like, you know... I mean, I don't mean
> THAT...and, uh...I'm just making it worse, aren't I? Here, this will all
> make so much more sense if I just show you what I mean. On the computer! I
> mean...just let me type this thing...er, what's your name?"
> 
> The graduate student left a few minutes later with her login details. So
> far as I know, no one got fired. In the end I think everyone had a good
> laugh, grad student included.
> 
>         - Dan C.
> 
> On 2/5/20, Rob Pike <robpike at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > Frodo (Ted Kowalski) told me it was originally spelled, and pronounced,
> > > fuck, for good reason, but he soon realized it was going to be used by
> > > others and changed one letter. It was just letters after that.
> > >
> > > -rob
> > >
> > >
> > > On Thu, Feb 6, 2020 at 1:34 AM Clem cole <clemc at ccc.com> wrote:
> > >
> > >> FWIW. When it was written, Ted and I used pronounced it as ???fisk???
> > (rhymes
> > >> with ???disk???), but F. S. C. K. was always acceptable to my ears.  I admit
> > >> I
> > >> smiled one time when I heard some one call it ???f-sick??? but that was not
> > >> considered the proper pronunciation.
> > >>
> > >> Sent from my PDP-7 Running UNIX V0 expect things to be almost but not
> > >> quite.
> > >>
> > >> > On Feb 5, 2020, at 3:45 AM, arnold at skeeve.com wrote:
> > >> >
> > >> > "G. Branden Robinson" <g.branden.robinson at gmail.com> wrote:
> > >> >
> > >> >> At 2020-02-04T09:40:18+0100, Sijmen J. Mulder wrote:
> > >> >>> markus schnalke <meillo at marmaro.de> wrote:
> > >> >>>> Wikipedia writes that `ed' would be pronounced ``ee-dee'' (like
> > >> >>>> ``vee-eye''), is that what you english speakers do?
> > >> >>
> > >> >> Certainly not.  When one sees a command name that duplicates a
> > >> >> frequently-used diminituve of a common name, the brain is going to
> > >> >> select that preferentially.
> > >> >
> > >> > ISTR thinking of it and calling it e-d, along with r-m, l-n, m-v and
> > >> > the other two-letter commands.
> > >> >
> > >> >> (And did people really say "dee-eye-tee-roff" for "ditroff"?)
> > >> >
> > >> > I did ... Although it's "groff" and not "g-roff". :-)
> > >> >
> > >> > FWIW,
> > >> >
> > >> > Arnold
> > >>
> > >
> >

-- 
---
Larry McVoy            	     lm at mcvoy.com             http://www.mcvoy.com/lm