[sdiy] OT Re: Basic was not an acronym

[John L Marshall]

>BASIC is an acronym.

I knew that I would suck someone in on that one.

John Kemeny and Thomas Kurtz introduced the language in 1964 at Dartmouth
College. Much later, technical writers had a compelling need to create an
acronym out of the word Basic. Many other computer language names are
acronyms or abbreviations; APL, ALGOL, FORTRAN, JOVIAL, LISP, PL/1, TRAC,
and so on. Therefore, BASIC must stand for something too. It doesn't, ..er
didn't. Pascal and Ada are not acronyms either. But, when BASIC was
introduced it was just plain old BASIC.

To quote one source, "The name "BASIC" may have come directly or indirectly
from the science of human languages. Before the second world war, C. K.
Ogden wrote a series called "Basic English". This was a list of 850 English
words which would serve to describe any other word in English (perhaps by
using more than one)."

During my search for who created the acronym out of BASIC one writer gave me
the term *bacronym* for the phenomena of converting an existing word into
acronym.

If you examine the words that allegedly form the acronym BASIC the words
make little sense. It becomes more obvious that some tech writer tried to
turn the word into an acronym. For example *Beginner*.

The RSTS/E (PDP-11's) operating system had BASIC built-in. Yes, imbedded
into the operating system. RSTS/E is a multi-user, multi-tasking operating
system. Strange to have a *beginner* language available at the command
prompt to computer system administrators.

It's purpose was for quick useful programming as well as for instruction.
Pascal was created by Knuth, at ETH, Zuerich, for instruction. It was used
commercially. At one time, all programming at Microsoft was done in Pascal.
But then, programming in Pascal is much like living under the Taliban.

Blitz was a language, similar to Basic, that was developed at Boeing. One
benefit of Blitz was that the Blitz card deck needed to be loaded into the
CDC once followed by all applications. The Fortran deck had to be loaded in
front of each application. Blitz was not an acronym.

In the computer world there are many *bacronyms*. Most are just plain
ignorant. BNC=British Naval Connector. There is not a British Navy. There is
a Royal Navy. The threaded version of that connector is a TNC. Is that for
Turkish Naval Connector?

Acronyms get renamed for no apparent (ignorant?) reason. Today's literature
refers to RAID as Redundant Array of Independent Disks. When originally
conceived RAID stood for Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks. Independent
hardly applies. Some hardware RAID 3 systems use an electronic spindle lock
feature on the disk drives. Hardly *Independent*.

Way too much rambling. Sorry.

John