Egg on my face for breakfast, crow for lunch, humble pie for dinner
Eric S. Raymond
>[A short but nasty flame directed at Robert Firth]
It is I who have learned the lesson this time. I'd had a rough and frustrating
day, and what I *thought* I saw was some random presuming to know better than
dmr about his own thought processes during the invention of C. I blew my top.
I have since been informed by email (in blistering detail) that Mr. Firth is
not a random and seen by dmr's followup that he was correct. I retract my
insulting statements about Mr. Firth and accept full responsibility for my
error. Let the record at least show that I was as quick to apologize as I had
been to flame.
Mr. Firth was not among those who filled my mailbox. I shall try to take his
restraint in the face of provocation as a model for my own future behavior.
--
Eric S. Raymond (the mad mastermind of TMN-Netnews)
Email: er...@snark.uu.net CompuServe: [72037,2306]
Post: 22 S. Warren Avenue, Malvern, PA 19355 Phone: (215)-296-5718
Robert Firth
>I retract my statements about Mr. Firth and accept full responsibility for my
>error.
Eric, your apology is accepted unreservedly. Neither was my post a model
of courtesy, which I hope also can be forgiven.
We all make mistakes on small points of detail; when I've done as much as
Dennis Ritchie my memory will no doubt have dropped even more bits than
it presently misses. So when I goof, please don't be afraid to post a
correction.
Let's all take a deep breath and get back to the technical stuff.
Robert Firth
Ed Nather
> [...] and what I *thought* I saw was some random presuming to know better
>
> Mr. Firth is not a random [...]
I'm interested in this use of "random" as a noun -- it's the first I've
encountered. Is this local usage, coined for the occasion, or what?
...just curious.
--
Ed Nather
Astronomy Dept, U of Texas @ Austin
Eric S. Raymond
> I'm interested in this use of "random" as a noun -- it's the first I've
> encountered. Is this local usage, coined for the occasion, or what?
MIT-originated hacker slang. Refers to a member of some class of persons
specified by context, with the strong implication that members of that class
are interchangeable from speaker's point of view. The phrase "a random" with
no apparent referent may be expanded to "a random twit", or "a random nuisance"
or "a random person-who-wouldn't-matter-except-for-being-annoying".
This particular noun-ization is related to the adjectival usages seen in
"some random luser", "any random file", or in the ur-name "J. Random Hacker".