[TUHS] Of flags and keyletters

[segaloco via TUHS]

On Thursday, February 29th, 2024 at 9:21 AM, Dave Horsfall <dave at horsfall.org> wrote:

> Just recollecting old memories: why did AT&T refer to "flags" as
> "keyletters" in its SysV documentation? Some sort of denial of
> Ed5/6/7/BSD's very existence?
> 
> The one good they did was the TTY driver...
> 
> -- Dave, who used to work for a SysVile shop

Curious Dave if you have a particular piece of documentation in mind?  I'm mostly finding the term "keyletter" in SCCS manpages and pages related to the lp print system.  This nomenclature appears to go back as far as Release 4.0 of SCCS/PWB on February 18, 1977, it is also used throughout the PIB regarding this release.

Maybe a nomenclature practice by some of the USG/PWB-side folks that slowly crept in?  Fwiw I generally see command-line bits as "options" throughout much documentation, with flag and option being used quite interchangeably, I don't get many hits at all in the 1983 System V manpage sources for "keyletter".

- Matt G.