Path: utzoo!censor!geac!torsqnt!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!usc!julius.cs.uiuc.edu!ux1.cso.uiuc.edu!csrd.uiuc.edu!s4.csrd.uiuc.edu!turner From: turner@sp64.csrd.uiuc.edu (Steve Turner) Newsgroups: comp.arch Subject: Re: The term Bug Message-ID: Date: 8 Dec 90 22:14:00 GMT References: <2351@mentor.cc.purdue.edu> <5053@taux01.nsc.com> <2334.275f6997@iccgcc.decnet.ab.com> <3018@crdos1.crd.ge.COM> Sender: news@csrd.uiuc.edu (news) Reply-To: turner@csrd.uiuc.edu (Steve Turner) Organization: Center for Supercomputing R & D Lines: 56 In-Reply-To: davidsen@crdos1.crd.ge.COM's message of 7 Dec 90 19:13:27 GMT Followups-To: alt.folklore.computers Bill Davidsen is probably right, but just to try and put a stop to this nonsense, I checked the online version of oed. To summarize: Bug as insect seems to have come first. Edison's use *is* the first one credited, but from the quote given it seems likely that he did not coin it himself. Annoy, etc, is more recent usage than either of the above. ---------------------------------------------------------------- Match 2 bug (b/\g), sb. [2 ] 1 A name given vaguely to various insects, esp. of the beetle kind, also to grubs, larv of insects, etc. Now chiefly dial. and in U.S.; esp. with defining words, as field bug, harvest bug, May bug, June bug, potato bug; also fire-bug, in U.S. applied colloq. to an incendiary. 1642 ROGERS Naaman 74 Gods rare workmanship in the Ant, the poorest Scarabi kind. It is, I suppose, a word of general use. [...] 3 b A defect or fault in a machine, plan, or the like. orig. U.S. 1889 Pall Mall Gaz. 11 Mar. 1/1 Mr. Edison, I was informed, had been up the two previous nights discovering `a bug' in his phonograph-an expression for solving a difficulty, and implying that some imaginary insect has secreted itself inside and is causing all the trouble. 1935 Jrnl. R. Aeronaut. Soc. XXXIX. 43 Casting, forging and riveting are processes hundreds of years old, and, to use an Americanism, `have the bugs ironed out of them'. 1956 N. SHUTE Beyond Black Stump v. 138 They worked..until the rig had settled down and all the bugs had been ironed out. 1958 Engineering 14 Mar. 336/2 The seven-and-a-half years..was not an excessive time to..get the `bugs' out of a new system of that kind. [...] Match 4 bug (b/\g), v. [1 ] [...] 3 To annoy, irritate. slang (orig. and chiefly U.S.). 1949 Music Library Assoc. Notes Dec. 40/2 Bug, popularized by swing musicians and now much used by be-boppers: to be annoying. 1952 B. ULANOV Hist. Jazz in Amer. 350 Bug, to bewilder or irritate. 1959 J. OSBORNE Paul Slickey II. ix. 71 It will surely bug you when there is no man to hug... You will be bugged for ever. 1959 Times 31 Oct. 7/3 The heroine..inquires picturesquely of the hero `What's bugging you?' and he replies, succinctly, `Life.' ---------------------------------------------------------------- The above is excerpted without permission from the online Oxford English Dictionary. It is intended purely as entertainment, so please don't duplicate it and sell the copies. -- Steve Turner (on the Si prairie - UIUC CSRD) ARPANET: turner@csrd.uiuc.edu Phone: (217) 244-7293 or (217) 367-0882 I went walking in the wasted city / Started thinking about entropy Smelled the wind from the ruined river / Went home to watch TV -- Warren Zevon