> 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