[linux-help] Re: ls

[Tom Hull <thull@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

"James O. Harms" wrote:
> 
> Tom Hull wrote:
> >
>  The main difference between less and more
> > is that less lets you scroll backwards; more doesn't. The reason more is
> > called more is that it waits for you to tell it to give you more. The reason
> > less is called less beats me; it was written later, so the name is some sort
> > of spin-off, but doesn't make sense.
> >
> It makes sense if you think of LINUX as the operating system of
> bad puns.  In addition to more and less, we have copyright and
> copyleft, as well as the Bourne shell and the Bourne again
> shell.  The list goes on, but these examples should suffice.

Not just Linux, this phenomena goes back to the beginning: Unix itself
was a pun on Multics. Still, such names are not all created equal. To
use your examples: bash is completely satisfying, copyleft is clever
and somewhat suggestive, and less is none of the above. When AT&T wrote
an answer program to more, they called it pg (cryptic for pager) -- the
same wits who gave us adb, sed, sh, wc, etc.

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