Commonwealth Hackish

Commonwealth Hackish
 n.

   Hacker jargon as spoken in English outside the U.S., esp. in the
   British Commonwealth. It is reported that Commonwealth speakers are
   more likely to pronounce truncations like `char' and `soc', etc., as
   spelled (/char/, /sok/), as opposed to American /keir/ and /sohsh/.
   Dots in {newsgroup} names (especially two-component names) tend to be
   pronounced more often (so soc.wibble is /sok dot wib'l/ rather than
   /sohsh wib'l/).

   Preferred {metasyntactic variable}s include {blurgle}, eek, ook,
   frodo, and bilbo; {wibble}, wobble, and in emergencies wubble; flob,
   banana, tom, dick, harry, wombat, frog, {fish}, {womble} and so on and
   on (see {foo}, sense 4). Alternatives to verb doubling include
   suffixes -o-rama, frenzy (as in feeding frenzy), and city (examples:
   "barf city!" "hack-o-rama!" "core dump frenzy!").

   All the generic differences within the anglophone world inevitably
   show themselves in the associated hackish dialects. The Greek letters
   beta and zeta are usually pronounced /bee't@/ and /zee't@/; meta may
   also be pronounced /mee't@/. Various punctuators (and even letters - Z
   is called `zed', not `zee') are named differently: most crucially, for
   hackish, where Americans use `parens', `brackets' and `braces' for (),
   [] and {}, Commonwealth English uses `brackets', `square brackets' and
   `curly brackets', though `parentheses' may be used for the first; the
   exclamation mark, `!', is called pling rather than bang and the pound
   sign, `#', is called hash; furthermore, the term `the pound sign' is
   understood to mean the L (of course). Canadian hacker slang, as with
   mainstream language, mixes American and British usages about evenly.

   See also {attoparsec}, {calculator}, {chemist}, {console jockey},
   {fish}, {go-faster stripes}, {grunge}, {hakspek}, {heavy metal},
   {leaky heap}, {lord high fixer}, {loose bytes}, {muddie}, {nadger},
   {noddy}, {psychedelicware}, {raster blaster}, {RTBM}, {seggie},
   {spod}, {sun lounge}, {terminal junkie}, {tick-list features},
   {weeble}, {weasel}, {YABA}, and notes or definitions under {Bad
   Thing}, {barf}, {bogus}, {chase pointers}, {cosmic rays},
   {crippleware}, {crunch}, {dodgy}, {gonk}, {hamster}, {hardwarily},
   {mess-dos}, {nybble}, {proglet}, {root}, {SEX}, {tweak}, {womble}, and
   {xyzzy}.
    

Commonwealth Hackish

   <jargon> Hacker jargon as spoken outside the US, especially in
   the British Commonwealth.  It is reported that Commonwealth
   speakers are more likely to pronounce truncations like "char"
   and "soc", etc., as spelled (/char/, /sok/), as opposed to
   American /keir/ and /sohsh/.  Dots in {newsgroup} names
   (especially two-component names) tend to be pronounced more
   often (so soc.wibble is /sok dot wib'l/ rather than /sohsh
   wib'l/).  The prefix {meta} may be pronounced /mee't*/;
   similarly, Greek letter beta is usually /bee't*/, zeta is
   usually /zee't*/, and so forth.  Preferred {metasyntactic
   variables} include {blurgle}, "eek", "ook", "frodo", and
   "bilbo"; "wibble", "wobble", and in emergencies "wubble";
   "banana", "tom", "dick", "harry", "wombat", "frog", {fish},
   and so on and on (see {foo}).

   Alternatives to verb doubling include suffixes "-o-rama",
   "frenzy" (as in feeding frenzy), and "city" (examples: "barf
   city!"  "hack-o-rama!"  "core dump frenzy!").  Finally, note
   that the American terms "parens", "brackets", and "braces" for
   (), [], and {} are uncommon; Commonwealth hackish prefers
   "brackets", "square brackets", and "curly brackets".  Also,
   the use of "pling" for {bang} is common outside the United
   States.

   See also {attoparsec}, {calculator}, {chemist}, {console
   jockey}, {fish}, {go-faster stripes}, {grunge}, {hakspek},
   {heavy metal}, {leaky heap}, {lord high fixer}, {loose bytes},
   {muddie}, {nadger}, {noddy}, {psychedelicware}, {plingnet},
   {raster blaster}, {RTBM}, {seggie}, {spod}, {sun lounge},
   {terminal junkie}, {tick-list features}, {weeble}, {weasel},
   {YABA}, and notes or definitions under {Bad Thing}, {barf},
   {bum}, {chase pointers}, {cosmic rays}, {crippleware},
   {crunch}, {dodgy}, {gonk}, {hamster}, {hardwarily},
   {mess-dos}, {nibble}, {proglet}, {root}, {SEX}, {tweak} and
   {xyzzy}.

   [{Jargon File}]

   (1995-01-18)