You’ve all seen it. People “bump” posts to get them up to the top of a board/forum.
I’d always assumed that it meant bump as in push. Checking dictionary.com, I can see two definitions that sound right:
3a. To knock to a new position; shift: bumped the crate out of the way.
5. To raise; boost: bump up the price of gasoline.
So, to the question. I’ve seen someone post that it means “Bring up my post”. Naturally, ever since I heard about NEWS and POSH, I’m more than a little suspicious about acronyms. However, those are old words whereas bump was presumably first used relatively recently in this context.
So does anyone have the dope on the first use of bump?
This post is begging to not be answered…
Since I spoiled that, I can tell you I’ve never really thought about it that way. I’ve usually seen it written BUMP or the like, so I always just assumed it came from somebody writing a ‘bump’ sound.
It says it goes way back to C++ programming jargon, though it says little else.
I can easily see computer geeks who speak the compu-lingo quickly bringing this into regular use on message boards, but I have no idea how long ago this may have happened of if it came into use another way.
OED lists ‘bump up’ as meaning ‘increase’ from at least 1940, so I think its pre-computer. I’m not guessing how that usage did originate, but bump=nudge -> bump up=increase imprecisely -> bump -> increase position in list seems a plausible change to me.
It could be from demote: Assign to a lower position; reduce in rank. You make your new post which gets bumped “up” as everyone else makes their new post, then bumped “down” (to number 1) as someone replies.
My possibly (OK, probably) unreliable memory has instances of ‘bump up’ being used to refer to non-computer queues. Along the lines of “If you complete this assignment successfully, we’ll bump you up in the promotion list.”
I agree that Shade’s 'bump/nudge --> bump/move --> bump up/move up --> bump/move up in a list" evolution is very plausible, though of course plausibility has little to do with etymology, and historical research is the way to get a real answer.
