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From: zweig@IDA.ORG (Johnny zweig)
Newsgroups: comp.misc
Subject: The word "recurse"
Message-ID: <1990Jul12.181205.6868@IDA.ORG>
Date: 12 Jul 90 18:12:05 GMT
Distribution: comp
Organization: IDA, Alexandria, VA
Lines: 16

I recently saw the following (abbreviated) pseudocode for a tree-traversal:

	procedure PRINT-LEAVES ( node )
	if node is a leaf then print node's name;
	else node must have children, so recurse once for each one;

My dictionary (-ies -- I tried 5) does not define the word "recurse", and
every definition of "recursive" just mentions a procedure/function that is
able to "call itself".  I have heard "recurse" used synonymously with "call
myself" often enough, but it seems like "recur" might be a more correct
choice.  Or maybe "recursivate" or "recursivize" (wink!).

Any language-lawyers (for Standard Computational English) out there know
whether "recurse" is really a word?

-Johnny English