From: Douglas McIlroy <douglas.mcilroy@dartmouth.edu>
To: TUHS main list <tuhs@tuhs.org>
Subject: [TUHS] Of flags and keyletters
Date: Fri, 1 Mar 2024 10:49:42 -0500 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <CAKH6PiV3ixuwoZ-d31JNXpQpHxAAcfpRKreUcn11msW1yjboLg@mail.gmail.com> (raw)
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> why did AT&T refer to "flags" as "keyletters" in its SysV documentation?
Bureaucracies beget bureaucratese--polysyllabic obfuscation, witness
APPLICATION USAGE in place of BUGS.
One might argue that replacing "flag" by "option", thus doubling the number
of syllables, was a small step in that direction. In fact it was a
deliberate attempt to discard jargon in favor of normal English usage.
Doug
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next reply other threads:[~2024-03-01 15:50 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 9+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2024-03-01 15:49 Douglas McIlroy [this message]
2024-03-01 16:23 ` [TUHS] " Steve Nickolas
2024-03-01 19:44 ` Paul Winalski
2024-03-01 16:56 ` Bakul Shah via TUHS
2024-03-02 0:33 ` silas poulson via TUHS
2024-03-02 18:53 ` Lars Brinkhoff
2024-03-02 18:24 ` Paul Winalski
2024-03-02 18:35 ` Warner Losh
-- strict thread matches above, loose matches on Subject: below --
2024-02-29 17:21 [TUHS] " Dave Horsfall
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