🚀 go-pugleaf

I hope you don't get this more than once, but here it goes:

The origin of P and V is explained in:

Andrews G.R. and Schneider F.B.
Concepts and Notions for Concurrent Programming
Computing Surveys, Vol. 15, No 1, March 1983, page 12, footnote

The footnote says:

P is the first letter of the Dutch word "passeren", which means "to pass";
V is the first letter of "vrijgeven", the Dutch word for "to release"
[Dijkstra 1981b].
Reflecting on the definitions of P and V, Dijkstra and his group observed
the P might better stand for "prolagen" formed from the Dutch words
"proberen" (meaning "to try") and "verlagen" (meaning "to decrease")
and V for the Dutch word "verhogen" meaning to increase.
Some authors use wait for P and signal for V.

end of footnote.

The reference to Dijkstra 1981b is resolved to "personal communication
Oct. 1981.

As I am Dutch, the explanation given by Andrews and Schneider looks
quite reasonable; except for a minor spelling problem (can you spot 
my correction in the text of the footnote?) the Dutch is correct.


    \     /   /
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  ## ## ## ##  ##
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" "  #    ## ##
"."  ".   "./
TTTTTTTTTTT  UU       UU    Delft University of Technology
TTTTTTTTTTT  UU       UU    
    TTT      UU       UU    Kees Pronk
    TTT      UU       UU
    TTT      UU       UU    
    TTT      UU       UU      uucp address: hp4nl!dutrun!dutinfd!kees
    TTT      UU       UU      real address: Julianalaan 132    
    TTT      UU       UU                    Computer Science Departement
    TTT       UUUUUUUUU                     2628 BL Delft, The Netherlands