2.1.1. Verb Doubling
A standard construction in English is to double a verb and use it as an exclamation.
E.g. "Bang, bang!" or "Quack, quack!»
Most of these are names for noises. Hackers also double verbs as a concise, sometimes sarcastic comment on what the implied subject does. Also, a doubled verb is often used to terminate a conversation, in the process remarking on the current state of affairs or what the speaker intends to do next. Typical examples involve win, lose, hack, flame, (see Glossary of Terms) culture has one *tripling* convention unrelated to this; the names of `joke' topic groups often have a tripled last element. The first and paradigmatic example was alt.swedish.chef.bork.bork.bork.
Other infamous examples have included:
alt.french.captain.borg.borg.borg alt.wesley.crusher.die.die.die comp.unix.internals.system.calls.brk.brk.brk sci.physics.edward.teller.boom.boom.boom alt.sadistic.dentists.drill.drill.drill
2.1.2. Soundalike Slang
Hackers often make rhymes or puns in order to convert an ordinary word or phrase in order to achieve a humorous effect. It is considered particularly flavorful if the phrase is bent so as to include some other jargon word. For instance, the computer hobbyist magazine "Dr. Dobb's Journal" is almost always referred to among hackers as `Dr. Frob's Journal' or simply `Dr. Frob's'. Terms of this kind that have been in fairly wide use include names for newspapers
E.g.: Boston Herald - Horrid (or Harried)
Boston Globe - Boston Glob
Houston (or San Francisco) Chronicle - the Crocknicle (or the Comical)
New York Times - New York Slime
However, the following terms are often made up on the spur of the moment. Standard examples include:
IBM 360 - IBM Three-Sickly
Government Property -- Do Not Duplicate (on keys)
ð Government Duplicity -- Do Not Propagate
for historical reasons - for hysterical raisins
Soundalike slang has been compared to the Cockney rhyming slang it has been compared to in the past (see the Glossary of Terms). They are not really similar because Cockney substitutions are opaque whereas hacker punning jargon is intentionally transparent.
2.1.3. The -P convention
The –P convention means turning a word into a question by adding the syllable `P'. It originated from the LISP convention of appending the letter `P' to denote a predicate. The question expects a yes/no answer.
E.g.: 1) At dinnertime:
Question: "Foodp?"
Answer: "Yeah, I'm pretty hungry." or "T!"
2) Instead of «How are you doing?»:
Question: "State-of-the-world-P?"
Answer: (Straight) "I'm about to go home."
Answer: (Humorous) "Yes, the world has a state."
3) On the phone to Florida:
Question: "State-p Florida?"
Answer: "Been reading JARGON.TXT again, eh?"
Once, when Bill Gosper, a famous hacker, was at a Chinese restaurant with his friends, he wanted to know whether someone would like to share with him a two-person-sized bowl of soup. His inquiry was: "Split-p soup?" It is known to be one of the best hacks.
The most frequently used positive reply to a question using Îøèáêà! Çàêëàäêà íå îïðåäåëåíà.) is «T’, which is taken from the LISP terminology and means «true’. Some LISP hackers use `T' and `NIL' (New Implementation of LISP) instead of `Yes' and `No' almost reflexively. This sometimes causes misunderstandings. For example, when a waiter or flight attendant asks whether a hacker wants coffee, he may absently respond `T', meaning that he wants coffee; but of course he will be brought a cup of tea instead.
2.1.4. Generalization
A very conspicuous feature of jargon is the frequency with which techspeak items such as names of program tools, command language primitives, and even assembler codes are applied to contexts outside of computing wherever hackers find amusing analogies to them. One of the best-known examples of generalization is that Unix hackers often grep (see the Glossary of Terms) for things rather than search for them.
Hackers enjoy generalization on the grammatical level as well. They add the wrong endings to various words and them make nouns and verbs, often by extending a standard rule to non-uniform cases (or vice versa).
E.g.: porous - porosity
generous - generosity
Hackers successfully generalize:
mysterious - mysteriosity
ferrous - ferrosity
obvious => obviosity
dubious => dubiosity
Another class of common construction uses the suffix `-itude' to abstract a quality from almost any adjective or noun. This usage arises especially in cases where mainstream English would perform the same abstraction through `-iness' or `-ingness'.
E.g. win => winnitude (a common exclamation)
loss => lossitude
cruft => cruftitude
lame => lameitude
Some hackers cheerfully reverse this transformation. For example, they argue, that the horizontal degree lines on a globe ought to be called `lats' because they measure latitude!
Also, hackers noun verbs.
E.g.: "I'll mouse it up", "Hang on while I clipboard it over".
This is only a slight overgeneralization in modern English that all verbs can be nouned. In hackish, however, it is good form to mark them in some nonstandard way.
E.g.: disgust => disgustitude
hack => hackification
English as a whole is already heading in the direction towards pure-positional grammar like Chinese; hackers are simply a little ahead of the process.
However, hackers avoid the unimaginative verb-making techniques characteristic of marketroids, bean counters, and the Pentagon; a hacker would never, for example, `productize', `prioritize', or `securitize' things. Hackers have a strong aversion to bureaucratic bafflegab and regard those who use it with contempt.
Further, certain kinds of nonstandard plural forms prevail in hacker jargon. Some of these go back quite a ways; the TMRC Dictionary includes an entry which implies that the plural of `mouse' is meeces, and notes that the defined plural of `caboose' is `cabeese'. This latter has apparently been a standard joke among railroad enthusiasts for many years.
On a similarly Anglo-Saxon note, almost anything ending in `x' may form plurals in `-xen'. Even words ending in phonetic /k/ alone are sometimes treated this way.
E.g.: `soxen' for a bunch of socks.
Other funny plurals are `frobbotzim' for the plural of `frobbozz' (see frobnitz) and `Unices' and `Twenices' (rather than `Unixes' and `Twenexes'. But note that `Unixen' and `Twenexen' are never used; it has been suggested that this is because `-ix' and `-ex' are Latin singular endings that attract a Latinate plural. Finally, it has been suggested to general approval that the plural of `mongoose' ought to be `polygoose'.
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