From owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Sat Dec 20 15:57:03 2003 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 161B816A4CE for ; Sat, 20 Dec 2003 15:57:03 -0800 (PST) Received: from ns1.tiadon.com (SMTP.tiadon.com [69.27.132.161]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id C321F43D4C for ; Sat, 20 Dec 2003 15:57:01 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from kdk@daleco.biz) Received: from daleco.biz ([69.27.131.0]) by ns1.tiadon.com with Microsoft SMTPSVC(6.0.3790.0); Sat, 20 Dec 2003 18:00:08 -0600 Message-ID: <3FE4E1A4.1080302@daleco.biz> Date: Sat, 20 Dec 2003 17:56:20 -0600 From: "Kevin D. Kinsey, DaleCo, S.P." User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; FreeBSD i386; en-US; rv:1.5) Gecko/20031124 X-Accept-Language: en-us, en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Colin Percival 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> In-Reply-To: <5.0.2.1.1.20031220230641.02d15ec0@popserver.sfu.ca> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-OriginalArrivalTime: 21 Dec 2003 00:00:09.0234 (UTC) FILETIME=[65E7BF20:01C3C755] cc: chat@freebsd.org cc: Bill Moran Subject: Re: A bit of trivia: what does usr stand for? X-BeenThere: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list List-Id: Non technical items related to the community List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Sat, 20 Dec 2003 23:57:03 -0000 Colin Percival wrote: > At 18:04 20/12/2003 -0500, Bill Moran wrote: > >> Colin Percival wrote: >> > There's an urban myth floating around that it meant Unix System >> Resource. >> >>> According to denizens of afc, this is likely a backronym, since the >>> first >>> use of /usr/ was to store user's files. >> >> >> 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. ;) > > Colin Percival > UNIX is a tad famous for "lazy typists"; Ritchie has been quoted (I think) as saying Thompson had a grand penchant for brevity or sparseness. Could it be related to storage issues? Three chars and a slash isn't a biggie anymore, but back then, ?? Somebody smarter than me might know....