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From: dat@ukc.ac.uk (D.A.Turner)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.functional
Subject: Re: thunk's
Message-ID: <7394@harrier.ukc.ac.uk>
Date: 23 Apr 91 10:17:38 GMT
References: <1991Apr19.064216.23597@gucis.sct.gu.edu.au> <1151@creatures.cs.vt.edu>
Reply-To: dat@ukc.ac.uk (D.A.Turner)
Organization: Computing Lab, University of Kent at Canterbury, UK.
Lines: 20

In article <1151@creatures.cs.vt.edu> lavinus@csgrad.cs.vt.edu () writes:
>Hi out there!
>
>I have a question that has been nagging me for quite some time: why do we
>call closures "thunk"s?  I mean, where did that word come from?

I can throw some light on the origin of the word "thunk".  It was in use
around  1960  amongst  school-children  in London (maybe elsewhere but I
have no evidence) as slang for day-dream or fantasy.  Eg.  "You look far
away, are you having a thunk?" In this context I always assumed it to be
a facetious past tense for "think".

The  word  entered  computer  science   not   long   after,   when   the
mini-procedures   needed   to   implement  Algol-60's  call-by-name  got
christened "thunks" (I think by Randell and Russell).  Its use today for
closures obviously descends from that.  Whether Randell and Russell took
the word from the use mentioned in the previous para I do not know.

David Turner
(University of Kent)