Often appended to FOO to produce FOOBAR.īARF 1. 'Suppose we have two functions FOO and BAR. The second metasyntactic variable, after FOO.

Common alternate name for EXCL (q.v.), especially at CMU. Synonyms: LOSER, LOSING, CRETINOUS, BLETCHEROUS, BARFUCIOUS, CHOMPER, CHOMPING.īANG n. Grammatically separable one may speak of 'biting the bag'. 'This bagbiting system won't let me get out of spacewar.' Usage: verges on obscenity. Equipment or program that fails, usually intermittently. Example: Some programs which produce XGP output files spool them automagically.īAGBITER 1. Automatically, but in a way which, for some reason (typically because it is too complicated, or too ugly, or perhaps even too trivial), I don't feel like explaining to you. Abbreviation for 'argument' (to a function), used so often as to have become a new word.ĪUTOMAGICALLY adv. 'Aos the campfire.' Usage: considered silly. See BROKET.ĪOS (aus (East coast) ay-ahs (West coast)) v. Also,Ĭomputers should be tredecimal instead of BRACKETS (primarily MIT) n. For logic is the only good programming language.Īnyone who would use anything else is an idiot. From the SCRIBE command of the same name. Another expression sometimes heard is (primarily CMU) with used humorously in writing to indicate a context or to remark on the surrounded text. It has been suggested that this usage derives from the impossibility of representing such noises in a com link. Spoken inarticulations: Words such as 'mumble', 'sigh', and 'groan' are spoken in places where their referent might more naturally be used. Other examples: winnitude, disgustitude, hackification. Peculiar nouns: MIT AI hackers love to take various words and add the wrong endings to them to make nouns and verbs, often by extending a standard rule to nonuniform cases. 'State-of-the-world-P?' (Straight) 'I'm about to go home.' (See T and NIL.)Īt dinnertime: 'Foodp?' 'Yeah, I'm pretty hungry.' or 'T!' The question should expect a yes/no answer, though it needn't. The -P convention: turning a word into a question by appending the syllable 'P' from the LISP convention of appending the letter 'P' to denote a predicate (a Boolean-values function). Margaret Jacks Hall => Marginal Hacks Hall. Frob's Journal Ĭreeping featurism => feeping creaturism Often the substitution will be made in such a way as to slip in a standard jargon word:ĭr. => government duplicity - do not propagate. Government property - do not duplicate (seen on keys) Historical reasons => hysterical raisins Herald American => Horrid (Harried) American Soundalike slang: similar to Cockney rhyming slang. 'Mostly he just talked about his - crock. 'The disk heads just crashed.' 'Lose, lose.' Typical examples involve WIN, LOSE, HACK, FLAME, BARF, CHOMP. Verb doubling: a standard construction is to double a verb and use i as a comment on what the implied subject does. The Original Hacker's Dictionary The Original Hacker's Dictionary

Glims acronym