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From: spaf@gatech.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.misc
Subject: Re: do people's names get changed from being on a net?
Message-ID: <416@gatech.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 28-Aug-83 22:21:46 EDT
Article-I.D.: gatech.416
Posted: Sun Aug 28 22:21:46 1983
Date-Received: Tue, 30-Aug-83 09:57:30 EDT
References: <2101@utcsrgv.UUCP>
Organization: Georgia Tech, School of ICS
Lines: 24

I think the choice of computer account names and nicknames is related
to Zipf's Least Effort principle -- short names and single syllables
will win out over long names every time.

My second computer account was "spaf"  (the first was Y200 on an HP 2000)
and I have had that as a nickname ever since.  Many of my students over
the past few years felt uncomfortable calling me "Gene" and I threatened
them with disembowelment if they called me "Professor" (I'm a grad
student here); they picked up my account name and used that.  In
fact, there are at least 3 or 4 former students who probably don't know my
regular nickname (Gene), and most don't know my real first name
(Eugene).  In fact, some of the faculty and staff call me "Spaf"
instead of "Gene."  Better than some of the other things they've
called me....

I've seen a number of cases where people have been tagged with new
nicknames based on their computer account names -- especially the
ones whose initials happened to form some kind of pronouncable
syllable.  System managers take note!

-- 
The padded cell of Gene Spafford
CSNet:	Spaf @ GATech		ARPA:	Spaf.GATech @ UDel-Relay
uucp:	...!{sb1,allegra,ut-ngp}!gatech!spaf ...!duke!mcnc!msdc!gatech!spaf