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From: Greg 'groggy' Lehey <grog@lemis.com>
To: "John P. Linderman" <jpl.jpl@gmail.com>
Cc: The Unix Heritage Society <tuhs@minnie.tuhs.org>
Subject: [TUHS] Grep (was:  TUHS Digest, Vol 32, Issue 12)
Date: Thu, 19 Jul 2018 12:50:29 +1000	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <20180719025029.GC54853@eureka.lemis.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <CAC0cEp-XYOWdq_+dxTfbbeqYX-6CHnUpsxAjHF=Fd-jcNynAyA@mail.gmail.com>

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On Wednesday, 18 July 2018 at  9:47:44 -0400, John P. Linderman wrote:
> "Grep" as a verb expanded beyond files. I recall a friend saying they were
> "grepping for their keys on the dresser".

It's interesting to note that the Oxford English Dictionary has
included grep`both as a noun and  as a verb in 2003.  From the noun:

  Etymology: < grep, a string of characters used as a command in the
             Unix operating system < the initial letters of global(ly)
             search regular expression print.

	     The string g/re/p (where re stands for the regular
	     expression searched for) was earlier used in a Unix text
	     editor as the syntax for a sequence of commands
	     performing the same operation as grep.

Here your usage:

 2. trans. slang (usually humorous). Of a person: to search; to scan visually.

   1984 The Doctor's New Clothes in net.tv.drwho (Usenet newsgroup) 16
        Aug.  Peter Davison happened across his clothes while grepping
        the TARDIS for the Zero Room.

Greg
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  parent reply	other threads:[~2018-07-19  2:58 UTC|newest]

Thread overview: 8+ messages / expand[flat|nested]  mbox.gz  Atom feed  top
     [not found] <mailman.3.1531879201.24006.tuhs@minnie.tuhs.org>
2018-07-18 11:39 ` [TUHS] TUHS Digest, Vol 32, Issue 12 Doug McIlroy
2018-07-18 13:47   ` John P. Linderman
2018-07-18 16:13     ` [TUHS] grep William Cheswick
2018-07-18 16:25       ` Kurt H Maier
2018-07-18 17:13         ` George Michaelson
2018-07-18 17:35           ` Bakul Shah
2018-07-19  2:50     ` Greg 'groggy' Lehey [this message]
2018-07-18 14:41   ` [TUHS] TUHS Digest, Vol 32, Issue 12 arnold

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