5.0150 Grace Hopper and the 'Bug' (2/41)
Elaine Brennan & Allen Renear (EDITORS@BROWNVM.BITNET)
Tue, 18 Jun 91 10:44:06 EDT
Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 5, No. 0150. Tuesday, 18 Jun 1991.
(1) Date: Mon, 17 Jun 91 11:13:43 BST (21 lines)
From: Richard Giordano <rich@cs.man.ac.uk>
Subject: Grace Hopper
(2) Date: Thu, 13 Jun 91 20:17:38 CDT (20 lines)
From: James Marchand <marchand@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu>
Subject: Re: 5.0143 Bug and etymology & frequency
(1) --------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Mon, 17 Jun 91 11:13:43 BST
From: Richard Giordano <rich@cs.man.ac.uk>
Subject: Grace Hopper
Alan's note to Virginia reminds me of my interview with Grace Hopper in
Washington back in 1985, in support of my research on, well, believe
it or not, the history of the development of the COBOL programming
language.
Her story about the moth was the same. The only difference involves the
colored wire. She gave *me* a wire a few inches long and called it a
'Grace Hopper Nanosecond'--that is, the distance light travels in one
billionth of a second. She also gave me a packet that looked like it was
filled with ground pepper. These were the 'Grace Hopper Picoseconds',
that is, the distance light travels in one trillionth of a second.
Richard Giordano
Department of Computer Science
University of Manchester
(2) --------------------------------------------------------------31----
Date: Thu, 13 Jun 91 20:17:38 CDT
From: James Marchand <marchand@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu>
Subject: Re: 5.0143 Bug and etymology & frequency
I am sure that Grace Hopper was not lying. As a personal friend of her
former roomie, Pauline Schwalbe, I can vouch for her. However, it is
true that the word "bug", meaning "gremlin", glitch in the system, etc.
was in use long before she found the moth, which is why she said "bug"
and not moth. But why spoil a good story with "truth"? In answer to
Dennis Baron, I am sure that the etymology of woman is "woe unto man"; I
heard it from my grandmother; I know also that avis "bird" comes from a
+ via "no path" because it doth fly the untrammeled paths of space. As
to letter frequency: perhaps it is just because etaoinshrdlump
represents what was thought to be the frequency of the letters that the
linotype machine was so constructed. I remember that we used to end a
slug by running our fingers in just the manner described, so that
newspapers used to be full of etaoinshrdlump, because careless mocker
uppers forgot to break it off, whence Pogo's bookworm's name is Shrdlump,
Etaoin Shrdlump. There are truths which transcend truth.
Jim Marchand