🚀 go-pugleaf

Archive-name: hackers/words/jargon-file/1991-05-30
Archive-directory: mc.lcs.mit.edu:/pub/jargon/ [18.26.0.179]
Original-posting-by: throop@aurs01.UUCP (Wayne Throop)
Original-subject: Re: Name that character!
Reposted-by: emv@msen.com (Edward Vielmetti, MSEN)


> Please refer to _The_Jargon_File_.

I'm appending the jargon file entry on "ASCII" to this posting.
It answers many of the questions raised in this thread.

> I think that the Jargon File is available on prep.ai.mit.edu, although
> I'm not sure that that is the latest revision.

The jargon file was posted to alt.folklore.computers and comp.misc.  
If it had existed at that time, comp.society.folklore would have been 
used instead of comp.misc (if I remember right).

The version on uunet is listed as

    /usr/spool/ftp/pub:
    -rw-r--r--  1 revell     399569 Mar 24 12:17 jargon2.8.2.Z

A file that just *might* be the "jargon file classic" also
seems to be on uunet (though why in a "gnu" subdirectory is unclear):

    /usr/spool/ftp/gnu:
    -rw-rw-r--  1 root        43247 Apr 11  1990 jargon.text.Z


Also, contact info from the jargon file itself:

    Please email all additions, corrections and
    correspondence relating to the jargon file to jargon@thyrsus.com
    (UUCP-only sites without connections to an autorouting smart site can
    use ...!uunet!snark!jargon).

-----------------------------------------

ASCII:: [American Standard Code for Information Interchange]
   /as'kee/ n. The predominant character set encoding of present-day
   computers.  Uses 7 bits for each character, whereas most earlier
   codes (including one version of ASCII) used fewer.  This change
   allowed the inclusion of lowercase letters, a major {win} --- but
   it did not provide for accented letters or any other letterforms
   not used in English (such as the German sharp-S and the ae-ligature
   which is a letter in, for example, Norwegian).  It could be worse,
   though.  It could be much worse.  See {{EBCDIC}} to understand how.

   Computers are much less flexible and pickier about spelling than
   humans; thus, hackers need to be very precise when talking about
   characters, and have developed a considerable amount of verbal
   shorthand for talking about characters.  Every character has one or
   more names; some formal, some concise, some silly.  Common jargon
   names for ASCII characters are collected here.  See also individual
   entries for {bang}, {excl}, {open}, {ques}, {semi},
   {shriek}, {splat}, {twiddle}, and {Yu-Shiang Whole Fish}.

   This list derives from revision 2.2 of the USENET ASCII
   pronunciation guide.  Single characters are listed in ASCII order;
   character pairs are sorted in by first member.  For each character,
   common names are given in rough order of popularity followed by
   names which are reported but rarely seen; official ANSI/CCITT names
   are parenthesized.  Square brackets mark the particularly silly
   names introduced by {INTERCAL}.

     !
          Common: {bang}, pling, excl, shriek, (exclamation mark).
          Rare: factorial, exclam, smash, cuss, boing, yell, wow, hey,
          wham, [spot-spark], soldier.

     "
          Common: double quote, quote.  Rare: literal mark,
          double-glitch, (quotation marks), (dieresis), dirk,
          [rabbit-ears].

     #
          Common: (number sign), pound, pound sign, hash, sharp,
          {crunch}, hex, [mesh], octothorpe.  Rare: flash, crosshatch,
          grid, pig-pen, tictactoe, scratchmark, thud, thump, {splat}.

     $
          Common: dollar, (dollar sign).  Rare: currency symbol, buck,
          cash, string (from BASIC), escape (when used as the echo of
          ASCII ESC), ding, cache, [big money].

     %
          Common: percent, (percent sign), mod, grapes.  Rare:
          [double-oh-seven].

     &
          Common: (ampersand), amper, and.  Rare: address (from C),
          reference (from C++), andpersand, bitand, background (from
          `sh(1)'), pretzel, amp. [INTERCAL called this `ampersand';
          what could be sillier?]

     '
          Common: single quote, quote, (apostrophe).  Rare: prime,
          glitch, tick, irk, pop, [spark], (closing single quotation
          mark), (acute accent).

     ()
          Common: left/right paren, left/right parenthesis, left/right,
          paren/thesis, open/close paren, open/close, open/close
          parenthesis, left/right banana.  Rare: lparen/rparen,
          so/already, [wax/wane], (opening/closing parenthesis),
          left/right ear, parenthisey/unparenthisey, open/close round
          bracket.

     *
          Common: star, {splat}, (asterisk).  Rare: wildcard, gear,
          dingle, mult, spider, aster, times, twinkle, glob (see
          {glob}), {Nathan Hale}.  [INTERCAL called this `splat']

     +
          Common: (plus), add.  Rare: cross, [intersection].

     ,
          Common: (comma).  Rare: (cedilla), [tail].

     -
          Common: dash, (hyphen), (minus).  Rare: [worm], option, dak,
          bithorpe.

     .
          Common: dot, point, (period), (decimal point).  Rare: radix
          point, full stop, [spot].

     /
          Common: slash, stroke, (slant), forward slash.  Rare:
          diagonal, solidus, over, slak, virgule, [slat].

     :
          Common: (colon).  Rare: [two-spot].

     ;
          Common: (semicolon), semi.  Rare: weenie, [hybrid].

     <>
          Common: (less/greater than), left/right angle bracket,
          bra/ket, left/right broket.  Rare: from/{into,towards}, read
          from/write to, suck/blow, comes-from/gozinta, in/out,
          crunch/zap (all from UNIX), [angle/right angle].

     =
          Common: (equals), gets, takes.  Rare: quadrathorpe,
          [half-mesh].

     ?
          Common: query, (question mark), {ques}.  Rare: whatmark,
          [what], wildchar, huh, hook, buttonhook, hunchback.

     @
          Common: at sign, at, strudel.  Rare: each, vortex, whorl,
          [whirlpool], cyclone, snail, ape, cat, rose, cabbage,
          (commercial at).

     V
          Rare: vee, [book].

     []
          Common: left/right square bracket, (opening/closing bracket),
          bracket/unbracket, left/right bracket.  Rare: square/unsquare,
          [U turn/U turn back].

     \
          Common: backslash, escape (from C/UNIX), reverse slash, slosh,
          backslant, backwhack.  Rare: bash, (reverse slant), reversed
          virgule, [backslat].

     ^
          Common: hat, control, uparrow, caret, (circumflex).  Rare:
          chevron, [shark (or shark-fin)], to the (`to the power of'),
          fang.

     _
          Common: (underline), underscore, underbar, under.  Rare:
          score, backarrow (from the ASCII-1963 graphic), [flatworm].

     `
          Common: backquote, left quote, left single quote, open quote,
          (grave accent), grave.  Rare: backprime, [backspark],
          unapostrophe, birk, blugle, back tick, back glitch, push,
          (opening single quotation mark), quasiquote.

     {}

          Common: open/close brace, left/right brace, left/right
          squiggly, left/right squiggly bracket/brace, left/right curly
          bracket/brace, (opening/closing brace).  Rare: brace/unbrace,
          left/right squirrelly, curly/uncurly, leftit/rytit,
          [embrace/bracelet].

     |
          Common: bar, or, or-bar, v-bar, pipe, vertical bar.  Rare:
          (vertical line), gozinta, thru, pipesinta (last three ones
          from UNIX), [spike].

     ~
          Common: (tilde), squiggle, {twiddle}, not.  Rare: approx,
          wiggle, swung dash, enyay, [sqiggle (sic)].

   The pronunciation of `#' as `pound' is common in the U.S. but
   a bad idea; {{Commonwealth Hackish}} has its own rather more apposite
   use of `pound sign' (confusingly, on British keyboards the pound
   graphic happens to replace `#'; thus Britishers sometimes call `#'
   on a US-ASCII keyboard `pound', compounding the American error).
   The U.S. usage derives from an old-fashioned commercial practice of
   using a `#' suffix to tag pound weights on bills of lading.
   The character is usually pronounced `hash' outside the U.S.

   Also note that the `swung dash' or `approximation' sign is not
   quite the same as tilde in typeset material
   but the ASCII tilde serves for both (compare {angle
   brackets}).

   Some other common usages cause odd overlaps.  The `#',
   `$', `>', and `&' chars, for example, are all
   pronounced "hex" in different communities because various
   assemblers use them as a prefix tag for hexadecimal constants (in
   particular, `$' in the 6502 world, `>' at Texas
   Instruments, and `&' on the Sinclair and some other Z80
   machines).

   The inability of ASCII text to correctly represent any of the
   world's other major languages makes the designers' choice of 7 bits
   look more and more like a serious {misfeature} as the use of
   international networks continues to increase (see {software
   rot}).  Hardware and software from the US still tends to embody the
   assumption that ASCII is the *universal* character set; this
   is a now a major irritant to people who want to use a character set
   suited to their own language.

Wayne Throop       ...!mcnc!aurgate!throop

-- comp.archives file verification
mc.lcs.mit.edu
total 416
-rw-r--r--  1 ftp        399569 Mar 24 12:17 jargon2.8.2.Z
-rw-r--r--  1 ftp         10427 Mar 23 17:40 DIFF281-282
-rw-r--r--  1 ftp          4447 Mar  2 11:41 READ.ME.271
found jargon-file ok
mc.lcs.mit.edu:/pub/jargon/