From: Larry McVoy <lm@mcvoy.com>
To: Dan Cross <crossd@gmail.com>
Cc: The Eunuchs Hysterical Society <tuhs@tuhs.org>
Subject: Re: [TUHS] pronouncing *nix formulas (was: screen editors)
Date: Wed, 5 Feb 2020 19:00:44 -0800 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <20200206030044.GD21264@mcvoy.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <CAEoi9W7rJ_Nx+=+VnuNSrKfbmOYsUFK+TQj5b9xND7AyRP_JCw@mail.gmail.com>
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@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@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@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@skeeve.com wrote:
> > >> >
> > >> > "G. Branden Robinson" <g.branden.robinson@gmail.com> wrote:
> > >> >
> > >> >> At 2020-02-04T09:40:18+0100, Sijmen J. Mulder wrote:
> > >> >>> markus schnalke <meillo@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
next prev parent reply other threads:[~2020-02-06 3:01 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 82+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2020-01-08 7:39 [TUHS] screen editors Thomas Paulsen
2020-01-08 15:58 ` Steve Nickolas
2020-01-08 23:41 ` Dave Horsfall
2020-01-09 1:43 ` Nemo Nusquam
2020-01-08 21:49 ` Dave Horsfall
2020-01-08 22:01 ` Clem Cole
2020-01-17 23:38 ` Dave Horsfall
2020-01-18 0:07 ` Ryan Casalino
2020-01-18 23:02 ` greg travis
2020-01-10 8:13 ` markus schnalke
2020-01-10 8:17 ` U'll Be King of the Stars
2020-01-11 19:58 ` markus schnalke
2020-01-11 20:54 ` Derek Fawcus
2020-01-11 21:27 ` Henry Bent
2020-02-04 8:40 ` Sijmen J. Mulder
2020-02-04 20:14 ` [TUHS] pronouncing *nix formulas (was: screen editors) G. Branden Robinson
2020-02-04 21:05 ` Dave Horsfall
2020-02-04 21:52 ` Derek Fawcus
2020-02-04 23:27 ` Rob Pike
2020-02-05 3:34 ` Warner Losh
2020-02-05 9:49 ` Angelo Papenhoff
2020-02-05 11:40 ` Rob Pike
2020-02-05 11:43 ` Brantley Coile
2020-02-05 10:58 ` Ralph Corderoy
2020-02-05 11:45 ` Rob Pike
2020-02-05 8:45 ` arnold
2020-02-05 13:35 ` Clem cole
2020-02-05 16:11 ` [TUHS] pronouncing *nix formulas Arthur Krewat
2020-02-05 16:16 ` Clem Cole
2020-02-05 17:05 ` Jon Steinhart
2020-02-05 17:09 ` Clem Cole
2020-02-08 3:31 ` Ronald Natalie
2020-02-08 4:19 ` Rob Pike
2020-02-11 1:16 ` George Michaelson
2020-02-11 6:38 ` Rob Pike
2020-02-05 20:26 ` David Arnold
2020-02-05 19:37 ` [TUHS] pronouncing *nix formulas (was: screen editors) Dave Horsfall
2020-02-05 19:57 ` Clem Cole
2020-02-05 20:50 ` Rob Pike
2020-02-05 21:43 ` Clem Cole
2020-02-05 21:59 ` Steve Nickolas
2020-02-05 22:22 ` Ed Carp
2020-02-06 2:43 ` Dan Cross
2020-02-06 3:00 ` Larry McVoy [this message]
2020-02-06 5:20 ` Vincenzo Nicosia
2020-02-06 14:54 ` Richard Salz
2020-02-06 15:10 ` [TUHS] pronouncing *nix formulas Lars Brinkhoff
2020-02-06 20:14 ` Dave Horsfall
2020-02-06 20:20 ` Warner Losh
2020-02-06 19:55 ` [TUHS] pronouncing *nix formulas (was: screen editors) Dave Horsfall
2020-02-06 21:48 ` Michael Parson
2020-02-06 23:56 ` Michael Parson
2020-02-06 22:17 ` Clem Cole
2020-02-07 0:21 ` [TUHS] finger usage (was: pronouncing *nix formulas (was: screen editors)) Greg 'groggy' Lehey
2020-02-07 0:27 ` Steve Nickolas
2020-02-07 0:54 ` [TUHS] finger usage (was: pronouncing *nix formulas Arthur Krewat
2020-02-07 1:00 ` Richard Salz
2020-02-07 5:26 ` Peter Jeremy
2020-02-07 4:31 ` [TUHS] finger usage (was: pronouncing *nix formulas (was: screen editors)) Dave Horsfall
2020-02-07 5:07 ` Greg 'groggy' Lehey
2020-02-07 5:39 ` Steve Nickolas
2020-02-07 21:39 ` Dave Horsfall
2020-02-07 16:14 ` Arthur Krewat
2020-02-07 22:37 ` Dave Horsfall
2020-02-07 4:23 ` Dave Horsfall
2020-02-06 2:23 ` [TUHS] pronouncing *nix formulas (was: screen editors) Dan Cross
2020-02-06 2:31 ` Dave Horsfall
2020-02-05 19:08 ` Dave Horsfall
2020-02-05 21:01 ` Nemo
2020-02-05 22:06 ` Dave Horsfall
2020-01-10 13:41 ` [TUHS] screen editors / machine load Mike Markowski
2020-01-10 13:56 ` Otto Moerbeek
2020-01-10 15:00 ` Mary Ann Horton
2020-01-10 15:48 ` Clem Cole
2020-01-10 22:18 ` Adam Thornton
2020-01-11 0:30 ` Christopher Browne
2020-01-10 15:31 ` [TUHS] screen editors Nemo Nusquam
2020-01-10 16:04 ` Clem Cole
2020-01-10 17:10 ` Dan Cross
2020-01-10 17:18 ` Steve Nickolas
2020-01-18 1:55 ` Michael Parson
2020-01-10 15:58 ` Theodore Y. Ts'o
Reply instructions:
You may reply publicly to this message via plain-text email
using any one of the following methods:
* Save the following mbox file, import it into your mail client,
and reply-to-all from there: mbox
Avoid top-posting and favor interleaved quoting:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posting_style#Interleaved_style
* Reply using the --to, --cc, and --in-reply-to
switches of git-send-email(1):
git send-email \
--in-reply-to=20200206030044.GD21264@mcvoy.com \
--to=lm@mcvoy.com \
--cc=crossd@gmail.com \
--cc=tuhs@tuhs.org \
/path/to/YOUR_REPLY
https://kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/docs/git-send-email.html
* If your mail client supports setting the In-Reply-To header
via mailto: links, try the mailto: link
Be sure your reply has a Subject: header at the top and a blank line
before the message body.
This is a public inbox, see mirroring instructions
for how to clone and mirror all data and code used for this inbox;
as well as URLs for NNTP newsgroup(s).