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We were copied on this interesting e-mail discussion.
From Richard Steinberg/Mr. Smarty Pants (The Austin Chronicle):
Professor Corbato
I write a trivia column for a newspaper called The Austin
Chronicle. Someone has asked me the origin of the word daemon as
it applies to computing. Best I can tell based on my research,
the word was first used by people on your team at Project MAC
using the IBM 7094 in 1963. The first daemon (an abbreviation for
Disk And Executive MONitor) was a program that automatically made
tape backups of the file system. Does this sound about right?
Any corrections or additions? Thank you for your time!
From Fernando J. Corbato:
Your explanation of the origin of the word daemon is correct in
that my group began using the term around that time frame.
However the acronym explanation is a new one on me. Our use of
the word daemon was inspired by the Maxwell's daemon of physics
and thermodynamics. (My background is Physics.) Maxwell's daemon
was an imaginary agent which helped sort molecules of different
speeds and worked tirelessly in the background. We fancifully
began to use the word daemon to describe background processes
which worked tirelessly to perform system chores. I found a very
good explanation of all this online at:
http://www.takeourword.com/TOW129/page2.html
(Search on "Maxwell" to locate the pertinent paragraph.)
To save you the trouble, I will cut-and-paste it right here. It
comes from a web-column entitled "Take Our Word For It" run by
Melanie and Mike Crowley, etymology enthusiasts!
------------------------------------
From Jan Danilo:
I am interested in the origin of the word daemon. I work
in information technology and I have always heard of
system processes referred to as daemons. I assumed that
it is an older spelling of demon. Can you shed some light
on this point?
Why certainly. Someone give us some of those phosphorescent
genes that have recently been spliced to mice DNA and we'll
shed light like mad. Demon and daemon were once used
interchangeably. The former came to English from medieval
Latin, while the latter was from classical Latin. The
earliest use appears to have been in the phrase daemon of
Socrates, which was his "attendant, ministering, or
indwelling spirit; genius". That was in the late 14th
century. It was a short time later that the term demon came
to refer to "an evil spirit" by influence of its usage in
various versions of the Bible. The Greek form was used to
translate Hebrew words for "lords, idols" and "hairy ones
(satyrs)". Wyclif translated it from Greek to English fiend
or devil. This is how the evil connotation arose. By the late
16th century, the general supernatural meaning was being
distinguished with the spelling daemon, while the evil
meaning remained with demon. Today daemon can mean "a
supernatural being of a nature intermediate between that of
gods and men" or "a guiding spirit".
[Warning: This paragraph is about science so, if this topic
causes you undue alarm, please close your eyes until you've
finished reading it.] The 19th century scientist James
Maxwell once daydreamed (the polite term is "thought
experiment") about a problem in physics. He imagined a closed
container which was divided in half. In the middle of the
divider was a tiny gate, just large enough to admit one
molecule of gas. This gate, in Maxwell's imagination, was
operated by a tiny daemon. This daemon observed the speed
(i.e. temperature) of the molecules heading for the gate and,
depending on the speed, let them through. If he let only slow
molecules pass from side A to side B and only fast molecules
pass from side B to side A, then A would get hot while B
cooled. Maxwell's daemon was only imaginary, of course, but
as it seemed to evade the laws of thermodynamics it caused
quite a stir. Eventually, though, the theory of quantum
mechanics showed why it wouldn't work. [OK, you may open your
eyes, now.]
As you probably know, the "system processes" called daemons
monitor other tasks and perform predetermined actions
depending on their behavior. This is so reminiscent of
Maxwell's daemon watching his molecules that we can only
assume that whoever dubbed these "system processes" had
Maxwell's daemon in mind. Unfortunately, we have found no
hard evidence to support this. [Now, of course, we have!]
We also assume that this is the meaning behind the
daemon.co.uk, host to many United Kingdom web sites.
--------------------------------
Professor Jerome H. Saltzer, who also worked on Project MAC, confirms
the Maxwell's demon explanation. He is currently working on
pinpointing the origin of the erroneous acronym etymology for daemon
in this sense. [We have edited Issue 129 to reflect this
confirmation of our original assumption. Isn't it wonderful to be
able to trace a word to its source so cleanly?]
From Brad Daniels:
While au jus does mean literally "with juice", it is short for
sauce au jus [de beouf], meaning "sauce made with juice [of beef]
", so, saying "with au jus", while admittedly awkward, is not as
wrong as it seems at first glance. OK, so maybe I could be an
anti-curmudgeon after all. Is there some requirement out there
that I be consistent?
But do you say "with a la mode"?
From Fred Wells:
RE: "and etc." and Ken Williams' comment about "with au jus",
close but no cigar. Avec is French for "with"; au is French for
"in". But, silly me, I just learned that from a high school
friend.
Sorry, Fred, but in this case au is usually translated as "with".
Look at cafe au lait. You don't say "coffee in milk", do you? Tell
your high school friend to study a bit harder, and don't believe
everything you hear (the cardinal rule of critical thinking).
From Richard Hershberger:
In the Sez You page of issue 145, Ken Williams comments on the
waitress who asked if he wanted his roast beef sandwich "with au
jus", to which you responded with "Aaargh!" While the waitress
clearly was not fluent in French, her English was impeccable.
English syntax requires a preposition in that construction. "Au
jus" lacks an English preposition, so she provided the one. The
fact that there is a French preposition in the phrase is
irrelevant, since the construction as a whole has been adopted
into English and reanalyzed to fit English syntax. This is a
normal process which has occurred innumerable times in the past.
It only seems incongruous because it is recent and because some
of us have enough knowledge of French to recognize the original
syntactical structure.
Again, Barb and Malcolm ask, do you say "apple pie with a la mode"?
They don't agree that the presence of a French preposition is
irrelevant. To be consistent with constructions like "apple pie a la
mode", one should not add an English preposition. The phrase au jus
should be treated as an adjective if it isn't going to be parsed as a
prepositional phrase.
From Jane Harrington:
Slightly off topic regarding the discussion "and etc" and Ken
Williams's comment about "with au juice" I would like to
contribute these "Canadianisms" for your enjoyment.
In Canada all labels must be in both official languages. To save
space, these labels often use one common word between a French
and an English descriptive word. As a result I have heard people
refer to "The Jeux Canada Games" (Jeux Canada being the French
name for The Canada Games) Another more common one is "old fort
cheese" which I admit to using. Old fort cheese has almost become
legitimate now. It has been used on the CBC national radio
programme "This Morning" at least twice, and if the CBC sanctions
it, it must be correct. Thanks for many amusing discussions.
Thanks, Jane! All of these are examples of macaronic phrases.
(Clicking on macaronic will take you to the glossary section of Take
Our Word For It.)
From Jane Irish Nelson:
In [last] week's Words to the Wise, you wrote that the Welsh word
for rabbit is cwningen. I was struck by the apparent resemblance
to the Spanish word for rabbit: conejo. Do you know it the two
are related? Thank you! I love words and look forward to
visiting your site each week.
Thanks for the kind words! Read on.
From Jeff Lee:
In Issue 135 of TOWFI, you write:
Of course there are rabbits in Wales! The Welsh word is
cwningen (feminine gender, plural is cwningod) but we don't
expect many English rabbits would stop at the border just
because they can't speak Welsh.
This reminds me of an old joke (from Wits Fittes & Fancies, by
Anthony Copley, 1595) which runs:
A manie Schollers went to steale Conies, and by the way they
warn'd a nouice among them to make no noise for feare of
skarring the Conies away : At last he espying some, said
aloud in Latine: "Ecce cuniculi multi." And with that the
Conies ranne into their berries : Wherewith his fellowes
offended, and chyding him therefore, hee sayd: "Who (the
Deu'll) would haue thought that Conies vnderstood Latine".
Out of curiosity, my dictionary indicates that cony derives
ultimately from cuniculus. Is the Welsh cwningen related, or is
it just a coincidence that they sound so similar?
Yes, all of these rabbit words are related. The English and Welsh
forms come from the Latin, and it is thought that Latin borrowed it
from an ancient Iberian language. Good joke, by the way!
From Brad Daniels:
Your letters on "ATM machine", "PIN number", etc. reminding me of
some more common acronym abuse:
The other day, I received an invitation exhorting me to "please
RSVP". "Please respond please?" Now, I know Repondez S'il Vous
Plait isn't English, but surely people know RSVP means "please
respond". And what about "RAM memory"? Surely, it's obvious that
RAM is an acronym (unless there's some new ovine technology out
there), and even if you don't know the "Random Access" part, the
"M" pretty obviously stands for "Memory". Hmm... Maybe I
wouldn't make a good anti-curmudgeon after all.
See!
From Lt. Maj. Michael Talbert:
I think you treated the one who offered this as the origin of the
term golf very kindly... "In Scotland, a new game was invented.
It was entitled Gentlemen Only Ladies Forbidden.... and thus the
word GOLF entered into the English language." ...but have you
done so at your own expense? I would have been impressed to hear
you point out that none of the words "gentlemen", "only",
"ladies", and "forbidden" existed with the familiar meanings at
the time the game golf is thought to have been invented.
We didn't think such explanations necessary. We already gave the
etymology of golf and gave a link back to that discussion. Going on
about how the words that make up the acronym are anachronistic as
far as the word's timeline go would be like beating a dead horse.
Also, we believe that the reader who wrote with that etymology was
aware that it was ridiculous and sent it because he knew we'd get a
kick out of it.
However, if the modern name golf was only given to the game
(however long the game itself existed) in recent enough
linguistic times to accommodate the acronym, then your reader may
be on to something... Got a final word on the subject? Love your
stuff!
Our final word: golf is not an acronym. Read our discussion of its
etymology. A very important rule of etymology which we cannot repeat
often enough: few English words derive from acronyms (sonar, radar,
scuba are some examples); very few derive from acronyms before the
20th century (don't even try to suggest posh!. We don't count okay
as an acronym: if it were one, it would be pronounced "ock"). Read
our past discussion of acronyms.
From Simon Rumble:
My main experience with the term Piri Piri has been through the
Nando's chain of Portuguese (the chain is actually South African)
chicken shops. This link also supports the Portuguese origin:
http://www.kingpiripiri.com/. However as avid colonizers, it's
likely that the origin of the term is not Portuguese but one of
their colonial victims... er, hosts.
From Alan Wachtel:
Rich Bowen wrote in Issue 145:
I grew up in Kenya, where there is a large Indian community,
and a lot of hot food, which we call pilli pilli or piri piri
depending on ethnic origin. I had long wondered about the
origin of this term, and I can see that it is a mutation of
pippali.
The most widely spoken language in Kenya, other than English, is
Swahili. It's been a long, long time since I learned Swahili in
the Peace Corps, but I still remember that the word for "pepper"
is pilipili. It's easy to see how that could become piripiri.
However, the term does not seem to have originated in Kenya's
Indian community.
The grammar of Swahili is Bantu. Most of its vocabulary is also
Bantu, but it borrows many words from Arabic, Persian,
Portuguese, German, and English, reflecting the region's trading
and colonial history. According to the Oxford "Standard
Swahili-English Dictionary," pilipili is derived from a Persian
word that I transliterate (with some difficulty, because I don't
know the alphabet, and initial, medial, and final forms of
letters are different) as plpl (vowels are not shown). Persian is
closely related to Sanskrit, and the similarity to Sanskrit
pippali is clear.
Plpl immediately reminded me of Hebrew pilpul, a form of Talmudic
disputation that involves close examination of minute
distinctions. Sure enough, pilpul is the Aramaic word, and
cognate to the Hebrew word, for "pepper," from, I'm guessing,
either the finely divided nature of the ground spice or its fiery
taste.
From Catherne [sic] Hackett:
[Etc.] is of latin [sic] derivation meaning "and the rest." I
don't know why I returned to your site. It's still hopelessly
WRONG.
Er... sure.
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