Lexical and syntactic-stylistic changes in modern english language: computerization, impact

1.Consonants are pronounced as in standard English:

`g' is always hard (as in "got" rather than "giant");

terminal `r' (as in «hard» or «more») may be pronounced or not depending on the local dialect

`j' is the sound that occurs twice in "judge";

`s' is always as in "pass", never a z sound;

the diagraph `ch' is soft (as in "church" rather than "chemist");

the digraph `kh' is the guttural of "loch" or "l'chaim";

the digraph 'gh' is the aspirated g+h of "bughouse" or "ragheap" (this case is rare in English).

2.Uppercase letters are pronounced as their English letter names; E.g.: /H-L-L/ is equivalent to /aych el el/.

/Z/ may be pronounced /zee/ or /zed/ depending on the local dialect.

4. Vowels are represented as follows:

/a/

back, that

/ah/

father, palm

/ar/ or /a:/

far, mark

/aw/

flaw, caught

/ay/

bake, rain

/e/

less, men

/ee/

easy, ski

/eir/ or /ea/

their, software

/i/

trip, hit

/ai/

life, sky

/o/

block, stock (see note)

/oh/

flow, sew

/oo/

loot, through

/or/ or /o:/

more, door

/ow/

out, how

/oy/

boy, coin

/uh/

but, some

/u/

put, foot

/y/

yet, young

/yoo/

few, chew

The glyph /*/ is used for the `schwa' sound of unstressed or occluded vowels (the one that is often written with an upside-down `e'). The schwa vowel is omitted in syllables containing vocalic r, l, m or n; that is, `kitten' and `color' would be rendered /kit'n/ and /kuhl'r/, not /kit'*n/ and /kuhl'*r/.

The above table reflects mainly distinctions found in Standard English (that is, the neutral dialect spoken by TV network announcers and typical of educated speech). Speakers of British Received Pronunciation can smash terminal /r/ and all unstressed vowels. Speakers of many varieties of southern American will automatically change /o/ to /aw/ or /ah/, etc. Entries with a pronunciation of `//' are written-only usages.

Conclusions

Computerization, hacker culture, and hacker jargon are viewed here as a source of lexical, semantic-stylistic, and phonetic changes it introduces into Modern English.

Further investigation of the hacker culture influencing Modern English from the perspective

Bibliography

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5.Каращук П.М. Словообразование английского языка. М., 1965.

6.Кубрякова Е.С. Что такое словообразование. М., 1965.

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8.Мостовий М.І. Лексикологія англійської мови. Х.: Основа, 1993. - 256с.

9.Раєвська Н.М. Лексикологія англійської мови

10.Швейцар А.Д. Литературный английский язик в США и Англии. М., 1971.

Glossary of Terms

= A =

AI /A-I/ /n./ Abbreviation for `Artificial Intelligence', so common that the full form is almost never written or spoken among hackers.

AI-complete /A-I k*m-pleet'/ /adj./ [MIT, Stanford: by analogy with `NP-complete' (see NP-)] Used to describe problems or subproblems in AI, to indicate that the solution presupposes a solution to the `strong AI problem' (that is, the synthesis of a human-level intelligence). A problem that is AI-complete is, in other words, just too hard. Examples of AI-complete problems are `The Vision Problem' (building a system that can see as well as a human) and `The Natural Language Problem' (building a system that can understand and speak a natural language as well as a human).

AI koans /A-I koh'anz/ /pl.n./

A series of pastiches of Zen teaching riddles created by Danny Hillis at the MIT AI Lab around various major figures of the Lab's culture

ASCII /as'kee/ /n./ [acronym: American Standard Code for Information Interchange] The predominant character set encoding of present-day computers.

ASCII art /n./

The fine art of drawing diagrams using the ASCII character set (mainly `|', `-', `/', `\', and `+').

ASCIIbetical order /as'kee-be'-t*-kl or'dr/ /adj.,n./ Used to indicate that data is sorted in ASCII collated order rather than alphabetical order.

= B =

backbone site /n./ A key Usenet and email site; one that processes a large amount of third-party traffic, especially if it is the home site of any of the regional coordinators for the Usenet maps.

BAD /B-A-D/ /adj./ [IBM: acronym, `Broken As Designed'] Said of a program that is bogus because of bad design and misfeatures rather than because of bugginess.

bagbiter /bag'bi:t-*r/ /n./

1.a program or a computer, that fails to work, or works in a remarkably clumsy manner.

E.g.:"This text editor won't let me make a file with a line longer than 80 characters! What a bagbiter!"

2.A person who has caused you some trouble, inadvertently or otherwise, typically by failing to program the computer properly.

Syn.: loser, cretin, chomper.

3. `bite the bag' /vi./ To fail in some manner. "The computer keeps crashing every five minutes." "Yes, the disk controller is really biting the bag." The original loading of these terms was almost undoubtedly obscene, possibly referring to the scrotum, but in their current usage they have become almost completely sanitized.

ITS's `lexiphage' program was the first and to date only known example of a program intended to be a bagbiter.

bagbiting /adj./ Having the quality of a bagbiter. "This bagbiting system won't let me compute the factorial of a negative number."

bang

1./n./ Common spoken name for `!' /interj./ An exclamation signifying roughly "I have achieved enlightenment!", or "The dynamite has cleared out my brain!"

barf /barf/ or /ba:f/ /n.,v./ [from mainstream slang meaning `vomit']

1./interj./ Term of disgust.

2./vi./ to express disgust.

E.g.: "I showed him my latest hack and he barfed" means only that he complained about it, not that he literally vomited.

3./vi./ To fail to work because of unacceptable input, perhaps with a suitable error message, perhaps not.

E.g.: "The division operation barfs if you try to divide by 0." means that the division operation checks for an attempt to divide by zero, and if one is encountered it causes the operation to fail in some unspecified, but generally obvious, manner.

Syn.: choke, gag.

In Commonwealth Hackish, `barf' is generally replaced by `puke' or `vom'.

barfulation /bar`fyoo-lay'sh*n/ /interj./

Variation of barf used around the Stanford area. An exclamation, expressing disgust. On seeing some particularly bad code one might exclaim, "Barfulation! Who wrote this, Quux?"

barfulous /bar'fyoo-l*s/ /adj./

(alt. `barfucious', /bar-fyoo-sh*s/)

Said of something that would make anyone barf, if only for esthetic reasons.

BASIC /bay'-sic/ /n./ [acronym: Beginner's All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code] A programming language, originally designed for Dartmouth's experimental timesharing system in the early 1960s, which has since become the leading cause of brain damage in proto-hackers. Edsger W. Dijkstra observed in "Selected Writings on Computing: A Personal Perspective" that "It is practically impossible to teach good programming style to students that have had prior exposure to BASIC: as potential programmers they are mentally mutilated beyond hope of regeneration."

This is another case (like Pascal) of the cascading lossage that happens when a language deliberately designed as an educational toy gets taken too seriously. A novice can write short BASIC programs (on the order of 10-20 lines) very easily; writing anything longer (a) is very painful, and (b) encourages bad habits that will make it harder to use more powerful languages well. This wouldn't be so bad if historical accidents hadn't made BASIC so common on low-end micros. As it is, it ruins thousands of potential wizards a year.

[1995: Some languages called `BASIC' aren't quite this nasty any more, having acquired Pascal- and C-like procedures and control structures and shed their line numbers. --ESR]

BiCapitalization /n./

The act said to have been performed on trademarks (such as PostScript, NeXT, NeWS, VisiCalc, FrameMaker, TK!solver, EasyWriter) that have been raised above the ruck of common coinage by nonstandard capitalization..

big win /n./

Serendipity. "Yes, those two physicists discovered high-temperature superconductivity in a batch of ceramic that had been prepared incorrectly according to their experimental schedule. Small mistake; big win!" See win big.

bigot /n./ A person who is religiously attached to a particular computer, language, operating system, editor, or other tool (see religious issues). Usually found with a specifier; thus, `cray bigot', `ITS bigot', `APL bigot', `VMS bigot', `Berkeley bigot'. Real bigots can be distinguished from mere partisans or zealots by the fact that they refuse to learn alternatives even when the march of time and/or technology is threatening to obsolete the favored tool. It is truly said "You can tell a bigot, but you can't tell him much."

bits /pl.n./

1. Information. Examples: "I need some bits about file formats." ("I need to

know about file formats.") Compare core dump, sense 4. 2. Machine-readable representation of a document, specifically as contrast ally, the opposite of `real computer' (see Get a real computer!). See also mess-dos, toaster, and toy.

blue box

/n./ 1. obs. Before all-digital switches made it possible for the phone companies to move them out of band, one could actually hear the switching tones used to route long-distance calls. Early phreakers built devices called `blue boxes' that could reproduce these tones, which could be used to commandeer portions of the phone network.

= C =

C /n./

1. The name of a programming language designed by Dennis Ritchie during the early 1970s and immediately used to reimplement Unix; so called because many features derived from an earlier compiler named `B' in commemoration of its parent, BCPL.

= D =

dark-side hacker /n./ A criminal or malicious hacker; a cracker. From George Lucas's Darth Vader, "seduced by the dark side of the Force".

Ant. samurai.

dead /adj./

1.Non-functional; down; crashed. Especially used of hardware.

2.Useless; inaccessible.

Ant.: `live'.

dead code /n./

Routines that can never be accessed because all calls to them have been removed, or code that cannot be reached because it is guarded by a control structure that provably must always transfer control somewhere else. The presence of dead code may reveal either logical errors due to alterations in the program or significant changes in the assumptions and environment of the program

Syn. grunge.

deadlock /n./

1.[techspeak] A situation wherein two or more processes are unable to proceed because each is waiting for one of the others to do something.

Also used of deadlock-like interactions between humans.

Same as deadlock, though usually used only when exactly two processes are involved. This is the more popular term in Europe, while deadlock predominates in the United States.

= E =

elegant /adj./ [from mathematical usage] Combining simplicity, power, and a certain ineffable grace of design. Higher praise than `clever', `winning', or even cuspy.

elite /adj./ Clueful. Plugged-in. One of the cognoscenti. Also used as a general positive adjective. This term is not actually hacker slang in the strict sense; it is used primarily by crackers and warez d00dz. Cracker usage is probably related to a 19200cps modem called the `Courier Elite' that was widely popular on pirate elder days.

email /ee'mayl/ (also written `e-mail' and `E-mail') 1. /n./ Electronic mail automatically passed through computer networks and/or via modems over common-carrier lines. Contrast snail-mail, paper-net, voice-net. See etwork

address. 2. /vt./ To send electronic mail. Oddly enough, the word `emailed' is actually listed in the OED; it means "embossed (with a raised pattern) or perh. arranged in a net or open work". A use from 1480 is given. The word is probably derived from French `'emaill'e' (enameled) and related to Old French `emmaille"ure' (network). A French correspondent tells us that in modern French, `email' is a hard enamel obtained by heating special paints in a furnace; an `emailleur' (no final e) is a craftsman who makes email (he generally paints some objects (like, say, jewelry) and cooks them in a furnace).

There are numerous spelling variants of this word. In Internet traffic up to 1995, `email' predominates, `e-mail' runs a not-too-distant second, and `E-mail' and `Email' are a distant third and fourth.

= G =

gen /jen/ /n.,v./ Short for generate, used frequently in both spoken and written contexts.

generate /vt./ To produce something according to an algorithm or program or set of rules, or as a (possibly unintended) side effect of the execution of an algorithm or program.

Ant. parse.

Gosperism /gos'p*r-izm/ /n./ A hack, invention, or saying due to arch-hacker R. William (Bill) Gosper. Many of the entries in HAKMEM are Gosperisms.

grilf // /n./

Girlfriend. Like newsfroup and filk, a typo reincarnated as a new word. Seems to

have originated sometime in 1992 on Usenet.

= H =

hack

1./n./ Originally, a quick job that produces what is needed, but not well.

2./n./ An incredibly good, and perhaps very time-consuming, piece of work that produces exactly what is needed.

3./vt./ To bear emotionally or physically. "I can't hack this heat!"

4./vt./ To work on something (typically a program).

E.g.: "What are you doing?" "I'm hacking TECO."

5./vi./ To interact with a computer in a playful and exploratory rather than goal-directed way.

E.g.:"Whatcha up to?" "Oh, just hacking."

6./n./ Short for hacker.

`happy hacking' (a farewell), `how's hacking?' (a friendly greeting among hackers) and `hack, hack' (a fairly content-free but friendly comment, often used as a temporary farewell).

hack mode /n./

1.What one is in when hacking.

2.More specifically, a Zen-like state of total focus on The Problem that may be achieved when one is hacking (this is why every good hacker is part mystic). Ability to enter such concentration at will correlates strongly with wizardliness; it is one of the most important skills learned during larval stage. Sometimes amplified as `deep hack mode'.

hack on /vt./ To hack; implies that the subject is some pre-existing hunk of code that one is evolving, as opposed to something one might hack up.

hack together /vt./ To throw something together so it will work. Unlike `kluge together' or cruft together, this does not necessarily have negative connotations.

hack up /vt./ To hack, but generally implies that the result is a hack in sense 1 (a quick hack). Contrast this with hack on. To `hack up on' implies a quick-and-dirty modification to an existing system. Contrast hacked up; compare kluge up, monkey up, cruft together.

hack value /n./ Often adduced as the reason or motivation for expending effort toward a seemingly useless goal, the point being that the accomplished goal is a hack.

For example, MacLISP had features for reading and printing Roman numerals, which were installed purely for hack value. See display hack for one method of computing hack value, but this cannot really be explained, only experienced. As Louis Armstrong once said when asked to explain jazz: "Man, if you gotta ask you'll never know." (Feminists please note Fats Waller's explanation of rhythm:

"Lady, if you got to ask, you ain't got it.")

hacker /n./ [originally, someone who makes furniture with an axe]

1.A person who enjoys exploring the details of programmable systems and how to stretch their capabilities, as opposed to most users, who prefer to learn only the minimum necessary.

2.One who programs enthusiastically (even obsessively) or who enjoys programming rather than just theorizing about programming.

3.A person capable of appreciating hack value.

4.A person who is good at programming quickly.

5.An expert at a particular program, or one who frequently does work using it or on it; as in `a Unix hacker'.

6.An expert or enthusiast of any kind. One might be an astronomy hacker, for example.

7.One who enjoys the intellectual challenge of creatively overcoming or circumventing limitations.

8.[deprecated] A malicious meddler who tries to discover sensitive information by poking around. Hence `password hacker', `network hacker'. The correct term for this sense is cracker.

The term `hacker' also tends to connote membership in the global community defined by the net (see network, the and Internet address). It also implies that the person described is seen to subscribe to some version of the hacker ethic (see hacker ethic).

It is better to be described as a hacker by others than to describe oneself that way. Hackers consider themselves something of an elite (a meritocracy based on ability), though one to which new members are gladly welcome. There is thus a certain ego satisfaction to be had in identifying yourself as a hacker (but if you claim to be one and are not, you'll quickly be labeled bogus).

hacker ethic /n./

1. The belief that information-sharing is a powerful positive good, and that it is an ethical duty of hackers to share their expertise by writing free software and facilitating access to information and to computing resources wherever possible.

2. The belief that system-cracking for fun and exploration is ethically OK as long as the cracker commits no theft, vandalism, or breach of confidentiality.

hacker humor A distinctive style of shared intellectual humor found among hackers.

hacking run /n./ A hack session extended long outside normal working times, especially one longer than 12 hours.

Hacking X for Y /n./ [ITS] Ritual phrasing of part of the information which ITS made publicly available about each user. This information (the INQUIR record) was a sort of form in which the user could fill out various fields. On display, two of these fields were always combined into a project description of the form "Hacking X for Y" (e.g., "Hacking perceptrons for Minsky"). This form of description became traditional and has since been carried over to other systems with more general facilities for self-advertisement.

Hackintosh /n./ 1. An Apple Lisa that has been hacked into emulating a Macintosh (also called a `Mac XL'). 2. A Macintosh assembled from parts theoretically belonging to different models in the line.

hackish /hak'ish/ /adj./ (also hackishness n.) 1. Said of something that is or involves a hack. 2. Of or pertaining to hackers or the hacker subculture.

hackishness /n./

The quality of being or involving a hack. This term is considered mildly silly.

Syn. hackitude.

hackitude /n./

Syn. hackishness; this word is considered sillier.

HAKMEM /hak'mem/ /n./ A 6-letterism for `hacks memo'A legendary collection of neat mathematical and programming hacks contributed by many people at MIT and elsewhere.

hakspek /hak'speek/ /n./ A shorthand method of spelling found on many British academic bulletin boards and talker systems. Syllables and whole words in a sentence are replaced by single ASCII characters the names of which are phonetically similar or equivalent, while multiple letters are usually dropped. Hence, `for' becomes `4'; `two', `too', and `to' become `2'; `ck' becomes `k'. "Before I see you tomorrow" becomes "b4 i c u 2moro". First appeared in London about 1986, and was probably caused by the slowness of available talker systems, which operated on archaic machines with outdated operating systems and no standard methods of communication. Has become rarer since. See also talk mode.

hand-hacking /n./

1. The practice of translating hot spots from an HLL into hand-tuned assembler, as opposed to trying to coerce the compiler into generating better code. Both the term and the practice are becoming uncommon. See tune, bum, by hand; syn. with /v./ cruft.

2. More generally, manual construction or patching of data sets that would normally be generated by a translation utility and interpreted by another program, and aren't really designed to be read or modified by humans.

haque /hak/ /n./

[Usenet] Variant spelling of hack, used only for the noun form and connoting an elegant hack.

hardwarily /hard-weir'*-lee/ /adv./

In a way pertaining to hardware. E.g.:"The system is hardwarily unreliable." The adjective `hardwary' is not traditionally used.

HLL /H-L-L/ /n./ [High-Level Language] Found primarily in email and news rather than speech. Rarely, the variants `VHLL' and `MLL' are found. VHLL stands for `Very-High-Level Language' and is used to describe Standard English that the speaker happens to like; Prolog and

Backus's FP are often called VHLLs. `MLL' stands for `Medium-Level Language' and is sometimes used half-jokingly to describe C, alluding to its `structured-assembler' image.

= I =

IBM /I-B-M/ Inferior But Marketable; It's Better Manually; Insidious Black Magic; It's Been Malfunctioning; Incontinent Bowel Movement; and a near- infinite number of even less complimentary expansions, including `International Business Machines'. These abbreviations illustrate the considerable antipathy most hackers have long felt toward the `industry leader'. What galls hackers about most IBM machines above the PC level isn't so much that they are underpowered and overpriced (though that does count against them), but that the designs are incredibly archaic and one can't fix them -- source code is locked up tight, and programming tools are expensive, hard to find.

IBM discount /n./ A price increase. Outside IBM, this derives from the common perception that IBM products are generally overpriced.

INTERCAL /in't*r-kal/ /n./ [`Compiler Language With No Pronounceable Acronym'] A computer language designed by Don Woods and James Lyons in 1972. INTERCAL is purposely different from all other computer languages in all ways but one; it is purely a written language, being totally unspeakable.

Internet /n./ The mother of all networks, that absorbed into itself many of the proprietary networks built during the second wave of wide-area networking after 1980. It is now a commonplace even in mainstream media to predict that a globally-extended Internet will become the key unifying communications technology of the next century

Internet address /n./ [techspeak] An absolute network address of the form foo@bar.baz, where foo is a user name, bar is a sitename, and baz is a `domain' name, possibly including periods itself.

2. More loosely, any network address reachable through Internet; this includes bang path addresses and some internal corporate and government networks.

ITS /I-T-S/ /n./ 1. Incompatible Time-sharing System, an influential though highly idiosyncratic operating system written at MIT and long used at the MIT AI Lab. Much AI-hacker jargon derives from ITS folklore, and to have been `an ITS hacker' qualifies one instantly as an old-timer of the most venerable sort. ITS pioneered many important innovations, including transparent file sharing between machines and terminal-independent I/O.

= K =

k- /pref./ Extremely. Not commonly used among hackers, but quite common among crackers and warez d00dz in compounds such as `k-kool' /K'kool'/, `k-rad' /K'rad'/, and `k-awesome' /K'aw`sm/. Also used to intensify negatives; thus, `k-evil', `k-lame', `k-screwed', and `k-annoying'.

= L =

lamer /n./ [prob. originated in skateboarder slang] Synonym for luser, not used much by hackers but common among warez d00dz, crackers, and phreakers. A lamer is one who scams codes off others rather than doing cracks or really understanding the fundamental concepts.

Ant. elite.

=M=

marketroid /mar'k*-troyd/ /n./ alt. `marketing slime', `marketeer', `marketing droid', `marketdroid'. A member of a company's marketing department, esp. one who promises users that the next version of a product will have features that are not actually scheduled for inclusion, are extremely difficult to implement, and/or are in violation of the laws of physics.

= N =

naive user /n./ A luser. Tends to imply someone who is ignorant mainly owing to inexperience..When this is applied to someone who has experience, there is a definite implication of stupidity.

neat hack /n./

1. A clever technique. 2. A brilliant practical joke, where neatness is

correlated with cleverness, harmlessness, and surprise value.

net.- /net dot/ /pref./ [Usenet] Prefix used to describe people and events related to Usenet.

E.g.: `net.goddesses' (various charismatic net.women with circles of on-line admirers).

net.personality /net per`sn-al'-*-tee/ /n./ Someone who has made a name for him or herself on Usenet, through either longevity or attention-getting posts, but doesn't meet the other requirements of net.godhood.

net.police /net-p*-lees'/ /n./ (var. `net.cops') Those Usenet readers who feel it is their responsibility to pounce on and flame any posting which they regard as offensive or in violation of their understanding of netiquette. Generally used sarcastically or pejoratively. Also spelled `net police'. See also net.-, code police.

network, the /n./ 1. The union of all the major noncommercial, academic, and hacker-oriented networks, such as Internet, the pre-1990 ARPANET, NSFnet, BITNET, and the virtual UUCP and Usenet `networks'. A site is generally considered `on the network' if it can be reached through some combination of Internet-style (@-sign) addresses.

NIL /nil/ No. Used in reply to a question, particularly one asked using the `-P' convention.

NSP /N-S-P/ /n./ Common abbreviation for `Network Service Provider', one of the big national or regional companies that maintains a portion of the Internet backbone and resells connectivity to ISPs. In 1996, major NSPs include ANS, MCI, UUNET, and Sprint.

number-crunching /n./ Computations of a numerical nature, esp. those that make extensive use of floating-point numbers. This term is in widespread informal use outside hackerdom and even in mainstream slang.

= O =

OS /O-S/

1. [Operating System] /n./ An abbreviation heavily used in email, occasionally in speech.

= P =

P-mail /n./ Physical mail, as opposed to email.

Syn. snail-mail, but less common.

Pascal /n./ An Algol-descended language designed by Niklaus Wirth on the CDC 6600 around 1967--68 as an instructional tool for elementary programming.

The hackish point of view on Pascal was probably best summed up by a devastating 1981 paper by Brian Kernighan (of K&R fame) entitled "Why Pascal is Not My Favorite Programming Language", which was turned down by the technical journals but circulated widely through photocopies.

= S =

samurai /n./ A hacker who hires out for legal cracking.

sitename /si:t'naym/ /n./ [Unix/Internet] The unique electronic name of a computer system, used to identify it in UUCP mail, Usenet, or other forms of electronic information interchange. The folklore interest of sitenames stems from the creativity and humor they often display.

sneaker /n./ An individual hired to break into places in order to test their security; analogous to tiger team. Compare samurai

= T =

T /T/ 1. [from LISP terminology for `true'] Yes. Used in reply to a question (particularly one asked using The `-P' convention). In LISP, the constant T means `true'. Some Lisp hackers use `T' and `NIL' instead of `Yes' and `No'.

2.A dialect of LISP developed at Yale.

talk mode /n./ A feature supported by Unix, ITS, and some other OSes that allows two or more logged-in users to set up a real-time on-line conversation. It combines the immediacy of talking with all the precision and verbosity that written language entails.

talker system /n./ British hackerism for software that enables talk mode.

= U =

UN*X /n./ Used to refer to the Unix operating system (a trademark of AT&T) in writing.

Unix /yoo'niks/ /n./ (also `UNIX') An interactive time-sharing system invented in 1969 by Ken Thompson after Bell Labs left the Multics project, originally so he could play games on his PDP-7. Dennis Ritchie, the inventor of C, is considered a co-author of the system. Unix underwent mutations and expansions at the hands of many people, resulting in a uniquely flexible and developer-friendly environment. By 1991, Unix had become the most widely used multiuser general-purpose operating system in the world. Many people consider this the most important victory yet of hackerdom over industry opposition.

Both forms `UNIX' and `Unix' are common, and used interchangeably.

Unix brain damage /n./ Something that has to be done to break a network program (typically a mailer) on a non-Unix system so that it will interoperate with Unix systems. The hack may qualify as `Unix brain damage' if the program conforms to published standards and the Unix program does not. Unix weenie /n./ [ITS] 1. A derogatory play on `Unix wizard', common among hackers who use Unix by necessity but would prefer alternatives.

unixism /n./ A piece of code or a coding technique that depends on the protected multi-tasking environment with relatively low process-spawn overhead that exists on virtual-memory Unix systems.

= V =

VAX /vaks/ /n./ 1. [from Virtual Address eXtension] The most successful minicomputer design in industry history, possibly excepting its immediate ancestor, the PDP-11. Between its release in 1978 and its eclipse by killer micros after about 1986, the VAX was probably the hacker's favorite machine of them all. Esp. noted for its large, assembler-programmer-friendly instruction set -- an asset that became a liability after the RISC revolution.

VAXectomy /vak-sek't*-mee/ /n./ [by analogy with `vasectomy'] A VAX removal.

VAXen /vak'sn/ /n./ [from `oxen', perhaps influenced by `vixen'] (alt. `vaxen') The plural canonically used among hackers for the DEC VAX computers. "Our installation has four PDP-10s and twenty vaxen."

vgrep /vee'grep/ /v.,n./ Visual grep. The operation of finding patterns in a file optically rather than digitally (also called an `optical grep').

vi /V-I/, not /vi:/ and never /siks/ /n./ [from `Visual Interface'] A screen editor crufted together by Bill Joy for an early BSD release. Became the de facto standard Unix editor and a nearly undisputed hacker favorite outside of MIT until the rise of EMACS after about 1984.

voice /vt./ To phone someone, as opposed to emailing them or connecting in talk mode. "I'm busy now; I'll voice you later."

voice-net /n./ Hackish way of referring to the telephone system, analogizing it to a digital network. Usenet sig blocks not uncommonly include the sender's phone next to a "Voice:" or "Voice-Net:" header; common variants of this are "Voicenet" and "V-Net". Compare paper-net, snail-mail.

= W =

WAITS /wayts/ /n./ The mutant cousin of TOPS-10 used on a handful of systems at SAIL up to 1990. There was never an `official' expansion of WAITS (the name itself having been arrived at by a rather sideways process), but it was frequently glossed as `West-coast Alternative to ITS'. Though WAITS was less visible than ITS, there was frequent exchange of people and ideas between the two communities, and innovations pioneered at WAITS exerted enormous indirect influence.

war dialer /n./ A cracking tool, a program that calls a given list or range of phone numbers and records those which answer with handshake tones (and so might be entry points to computer or telecommunications systems). Some of these programs have become quite sophisticated, and can now detect modem, fax, or PBX tones and log each one separately. The war dialer is one of the most important tools in the phreaker's kit. These programs evolved from early demon dialers.

warez /weirz/ /n./ Widely used in cracker subcultures to denote cracked version of commercial software, that is versions from which copy-protection has been stripped. Hackers recognize this term but don't use it themselves. warez d00dz /weirz doodz/ /n./ A substantial subculture of crackers refer to themselves as `warez d00dz'. Warez d00dz get illegal copies of copyrighted software. If it has copy protection on it, they break the protection so the software can be copied. Then they distribute it around the world via several gateways.

The contrast with Internet hackers is stark and instructive.

Weenix /wee'niks/ /n./ [ITS] A derogatory term for Unix, derived from Unix weenie. According to one noted ex-ITSer, it is "the operating system preferred by Unix Weenies: typified by poor modularity, poor reliability, hard file deletion, no file version numbers, case sensitivity everywhere, and users who believe that these are all advantages".

whacker /n./ [University of Maryland: from hacker] 1. A person, similar to a hacker, who enjoys exploring the details of programmable systems and how to stretch their capabilities. Whereas a hacker tends to produce great hacks, a whacker only ends up whacking the system or program in question.

2.A person who is good at programming quickly, though rather poorly.

win [MIT] 1. /vi./ To succeed. A program wins if no unexpected conditions arise. 2. /n./ Success, or a specific instance thereof, a pleasing outcome. "What a win!" Emphatic forms: `moby win', `super win', `hyper-win' (often used interjectively as a reply). `Suitable win' is also common at MIT, usually in reference to a satisfactory solution to a problem.

Ant.: lose

win big /vi./ To experience serendipity. "I went shopping and won big; there was a 2-for-1 sale."

win win /excl./ Expresses pleasure at a win.

winnage /win'*j/ /n./ The situation when a lossage is corrected, or when something is winning.

winner 1. /n./ An unexpectedly good situation, program, programmer, or person. 2. `real winner': Often sarcastic, but also used as high praise. "He's a real winner -- never reports a bug till he can duplicate it and send in an example."

winnitude /win'*-t[y]ood/ /n./ The quality of winning (as opposed to winnage, which is the result of winning).

= X =

X /X/ /n./ 1. Used in various speech and writing contexts in roughly its algebraic sense of `unknown within a set defined by context'. Thus, the abbreviation 680x0 stands for 68000, 68010, 68020, 68030, or 68040, and 80x86 stands for 80186, 80286 80386 or 80486.

2. [after the name of an earlier window system called `W'] An over-sized and over-complicated window system developed at MIT and widely used on Unix systems.

xref /X'ref/ /v.,n./ Hackish standard abbreviation for `cross-reference'.

XXX /X-X-X/ /n./ A marker that attention is needed. Commonly used in program comments to indicate areas that are kluged up or need to be.

Appendix

Poe Revisited, Computer Style

Once upon a midnight dreary, fingers cramped and vision bleary,

System manuals piled high and wasted paper on the floor

Longing for the warmth of bed sheets,

Still I sat there, doing spreadsheets;

Having reached the bottom line,

I took a floppy from the drawer.

Typing with a steady hand, then invoked the SAVE command

But I got a reprimand: it read "Abort, Retry, Ignore."

Was this some occult illusion? Some maniacal intrusion?

These were choices Solomon himself had never faced before.

Carefully, I weighed my options.

These three seemed to be the top ones.

Clearly I must now adopt one:

Choose "Abort, Retry, Ignore."

With my fingers pale and trembling,

Slowly toward the keyboard bending,

Longing for a happy ending, hoping all would be restored,

Praying for some guarantee

Finally I pressed a key--

But on the screen what did I see?

Again: "Abort, Retry, Ignore."

I tried to catch the chips off-guard--

I pressed again, but twice as hard.

Luck was just not in the cards.

I saw what I had seen before.

Now I typed in desperation

Trying random combinations

Still there came the incantation:

Choose: "Abort, Retry, Ignore."

There I sat, distraught, exhausted, by my own machine accosted

Getting up I turned away and paced across the office floor.

And then I saw an awful sight:

A bold and blinding flash of light--

A lightning bolt had cut the night and shook me to my very core.

I saw the screen collapse and die

"Oh no--my data base," I cried

I thought I heard a voice reply,

"You'll see your data Nevermore!"

To this day I do not know

The place to which lost data goes

I bet it goes to heaven where the angels have it stored

But as for productivity, well

I fear that IT goes straight to hell

And that's the tale I have to tell

Your choice: "Abort, Retry, Ignore."

TV Typewriters A Tale of Hackish Ingenuity

Here is a true story: One day an MIT hacker was in a motorcycle accident and broke his leg. He had to stay in the hospital quite a while, and got restless because he couldn't hack. Two of his friends therefore took a terminal and a modem for it to the hospital, so that he could use the computer by telephone from his hospital bed.

Now this happened some years before the spread of home сomputers, and computer terminals were not a familiar sight to the average person. When the two friends got to the hospital, a guard stopped them and asked what they were carrying.

They explained that they wanted to take a computer terminal to their friend who was a patient. The guard took out his list of things that patients were permitted to have in their rooms: TV, radio, electric razor, typewriter, tape player, ... no computer terminals. Computer terminals weren't on the list, so the guard wouldn't let it in. Rules are rules, you know.

Fair enough, said the two friends, and they left again. They were frustrated, of course, because they knew that the terminal was as harmless as a TV or anything else on the list which gave them an idea. The next day they returned, and the same thing happened: a guard stopped them and asked what they were carrying. They said: "This is a TV typewriter!" The guard was skeptical, so they plugged it in and demonstrated it. "See? You just type on the keyboard and what you type shows up on the TV screen." Now the guard didn't stop to think about how utterly useless a typewriter would be that didn't produce any paper copies of what you typed; but this was clearly a TV typewriter, no doubt about it. So he checked his list: "A TV is all right, a typewriter is all right ... okay, take it on in!"

Historical note: Many years ago, "Popular Electronics" published solder-it-yourself plans for a TV typewriter. Despite the essential uselessness of the device, it was an enormously popular project. Steve Ciarcia, the man behind "Byte" magazine's "Circuit Cellar" feature, resurrected this ghost in one of his books of the early 1980s. He ascribed its popularity (no doubt correctly) to the feeling of power the builder could achieve by being able to decide himself what would be shown on the TV.

Antihistorical note: On September 23rd, 1992, the L.A. Times ran the following bit of filler: Solomon Waters of Altadena, a 6-year-old first-grader, came home from his first day of school and excitedly told his mother how he had written on "a machine that looks like a computer -- but without the TV screen." She asked him if it could have been a "typewriter." "Yeah! Yeah!" he said. "That's what it was called."

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