From: dennison@telepath.com
Subject: Entamology of "Nasal Demons"
Date: 1999/06/09
Date: 1999-06-09T00:00:00+00:00 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <7jm4ga$o2e$1@nnrp1.deja.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: 7jm185$mhf$1@nnrp1.deja.com
In article <7jm185$mhf$1@nnrp1.deja.com>,
dennison@telepath.com wrote:
> In article <yeclndu44z8.fsf@king.cts.com>,
> Keith Thompson <kst@cts.com> wrote:
>
> > The folks over in comp.std.c have a good term term for this: "nasal
> > demons". This originated when someone observed that when the
compiler
> > encounters a construct with undefined behavior, it is legal for it
to
> > make demons fly out of your nose. See also the entry for "nasal
> > demons" in The Jargon File and/or _The New Hacker's Dictionary_.
>
> That's interesting. I wonder if that came about indepedently from
> c.l.a.'s "nasal monkeys", or if one influenced the other.
I just went and looked it up myself. The earliest reference I could find
to "making X fly out of Y's nose" was from a posting by Richard A.
O'Keefe <ok@cs.rmit.edu.au> on 1995/08/04 in comp.lang.c.moderated. It
may go back further than that, because dejanews doesn't keep
messages much older than that.
The first mention in comp.lang.ada was about 2 months later by
Dan.Pop@mail.cern.ch (Dan Pop) in a thread crossposted from several
other language newsgroups, including comp.lang.c. This is the post I
saw. It did indeed mention "demons", not "monkeys". I must have been
watching Wizard of Oz at the time. :-)
The term "nasal demons" seems to have first appeared in another thread
crossposted to c.l.a and c.l.c about 3 months later by Todd Knarr
<tknarr@xmission.com>
Deja is quite handy for wasting time in this manner. :-)
--
T.E.D.
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Share what you know. Learn what you don't.
next prev parent reply other threads:[~1999-06-09 0:00 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 57+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
1999-05-30 0:00 Which is right here - GNAT or OA ? Vladimir Olensky
1999-05-30 0:00 ` Robert Dewar
1999-05-31 0:00 ` Vladimir Olensky
1999-05-31 0:00 ` Robert Dewar
1999-06-01 0:00 ` dennison
1999-05-30 0:00 ` Florian Weimer
1999-05-31 0:00 ` Vladimir Olensky
1999-05-31 0:00 ` Robert Dewar
1999-06-05 0:00 ` Vladimir Olensky
1999-06-05 0:00 ` Florian Weimer
1999-06-05 0:00 ` Vladimir Olensky
1999-06-05 0:00 ` Robert Dewar
1999-06-07 0:00 ` Ada safety road Was: Which is right Vladimir Olensky
1999-06-06 0:00 ` Robert Dewar
1999-06-07 0:00 ` Pascal F. Martin
1999-06-07 0:00 ` Vladimir Olensky
1999-06-08 0:00 ` Robert A Duff
1999-06-06 0:00 ` Larry Kilgallen
1999-06-07 0:00 ` Keith Thompson
1999-06-07 0:00 ` Hyman Rosen
1999-06-08 0:00 ` Robert A Duff
1999-06-08 0:00 ` Robert Dewar
1999-06-08 0:00 ` Keith Thompson
1999-06-09 0:00 ` dennison
1999-06-09 0:00 ` dennison [this message]
1999-06-09 0:00 ` Robert Dewar
1999-06-09 0:00 ` Tucker Taft
1999-06-09 0:00 ` Robert Dewar
1999-06-09 0:00 ` dennison
1999-06-08 0:00 ` Robert A Duff
1999-06-08 0:00 ` Robert Dewar
1999-06-07 0:00 ` Keith Thompson
1999-06-08 0:00 ` Robert A Duff
1999-06-14 0:00 ` Ada safety road Franco Mazzanti
1999-06-15 0:00 ` Franco Mazzanti
1999-06-16 0:00 ` Vladimir Olensky
1999-06-10 0:00 ` Ada safety road Was: Which is right Peter Amey
1999-06-10 0:00 ` Markus Kuhn
1999-06-11 0:00 ` Vladimir Olensky
1999-06-12 0:00 ` Robert Dewar
1999-06-12 0:00 ` JP Thornley
1999-06-13 0:00 ` Vladimir Olensky
1999-06-16 0:00 ` William Dale
1999-06-19 0:00 ` JP Thornley
1999-06-21 0:00 ` Robert A Duff
1999-06-13 0:00 ` Vladimir Olensky
1999-06-12 0:00 ` Matthew Heaney
1999-06-13 0:00 ` Vladimir Olensky
1999-06-13 0:00 ` Robert Dewar
1999-06-13 0:00 ` Vladimir Olensky
1999-06-13 0:00 ` swhalen
1999-06-13 0:00 ` Robert Dewar
1999-06-13 0:00 ` Vladimir Olensky
1999-06-01 0:00 ` Which is right here - GNAT or OA ? Tucker Taft
1999-05-31 0:00 ` David Botton
1999-06-01 0:00 ` dennison
1999-06-03 0:00 ` Matthew Heaney
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