Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/5/84; site umd5.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!bonnie!akgua!whuxlm!harpo!decvax!genrad!panda!talcott!harvard!seismo!umcp-cs!cvl!umd5!zben From: zben@umd5.UUCP Newsgroups: net.nlang Subject: Re: Why the vax, but not the Unix?? Message-ID: <561@umd5.UUCP> Date: Sat, 8-Jun-85 03:41:41 EDT Article-I.D.: umd5.561 Posted: Sat Jun 8 03:41:41 1985 Date-Received: Mon, 10-Jun-85 21:29:59 EDT References: <27400001@gypsy.UUCP> <546@hou2b.UUCP> Reply-To: zben@umd5.UUCP (Ben Cranston) Organization: U of Md, CSC, College Park, Md Lines: 32 Summary: Because the vax is a locatable box in the corner Why "the VAX" and not "the UNIX"? There is a problem of collectivization and physical presence here. If your installation has only one VAX, it is probable your people say "the VAX" to refer to that collection of boxes in the corner. Since we have several here, more people refer to them as "the department's machine", CINCOM (sin-comm), or use the network names like umcp-cs or cvl. In any case, there is a physically locatable box or collection of cabinets. Thus people say "the ". By the way, you don't usually use the "the" when the object is NAMED. You would say "the network manager", but not "the Bill Smith". In the same way we would say "the department's 780" but not "the umcp-cs". We would just say "umcp-cs". Note also that to collectively refer to the many VAX computers out there a lot of people use the coined term "VAXEN", probably a derivative of "vixen" or something. There is probably some language that has contributed to English that uses a suffix "en" to denote a ploural, and subconscious memory supplies the usage. In any case, we say "on vaxen" rather than "on THE vaxen". On the other hand, UNIX is a pretty nebulous thing. You can't exactly point to memory box 5 and say "the UNIX lives there". Consider an IBM virtual system that might have 5 or 10 copies of UNIX running in separate virtual machines... You find this "the-less" usage with most software, since it is not locatable. When I say "in SPSS you ..." I mean that on any computer running the SPSS program you would "...". The usage is the same with UNIX. I mean any system running the UNIX program. -- Ben Cranston ...{seismo!umcp-cs,ihnp4!rlgvax}!cvl!umd5!zben zben@umd2.ARPA