Date: Sun, 21 Dec 2003 20:14:03 -0800 (PST) From: Doug White <dwhite@gumbysoft.com> To: Marty Landman <MLandman@face2interface.com> Cc: Bill Moran <wmoran@potentialtech.com> Subject: Re: A bit of trivia: what does usr stand for? Message-ID: <20031221201221.S55059@carver.gumbysoft.com> In-Reply-To: <6.0.0.22.0.20031221090242.07fbbd78@pop.face2interface.com> References: <5.0.2.1.1.20031220224013.02cf25c0@popserver.sfu.ca> <5.0.2.1.1.20031220224013.02cf25c0@popserver.sfu.ca> <5.0.2.1.1.20031220230641.02d15ec0@popserver.sfu.ca> <6.0.0.22.0.20031221090242.07fbbd78@pop.face2interface.com>
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On Sun, 21 Dec 2003, Marty Landman wrote: > At 06:08 PM 12/20/2003, Colin Percival wrote: > > >>The urban myth is believeable, though, since it seems silly to abbreviate > >>"user" with "usr" ... I mean, you're only saving 1 letter. > > > > The same could be said about /tmp. I suspect it has less to do with > >abbreviation, and more to do with someone having a broken "e" key on their > >keyboard. ;) > > I like the broken 'e' key hypothesis, although given the first Unix > developers were at Bell Labs I find it a little hard to believe; I worked > at Bell Core once upon a time and faulty equipment like that was something > I don't recall ever seeing. I like the faulty equipment idea; reference creat(2). Or someone who didn't like the letter 'e'. I think it was Kerningham that said that given the chance to do it all over, he would have called it create(2). -- Doug White | FreeBSD: The Power to Serve dwhite@gumbysoft.com | www.FreeBSD.org
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