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(from the illicit drug trade)
I’ll concede on that, but it’s a good example of an appropriated term. “Icon” derives from a Greek word meaning “image” - the idea is that in certain Christian traditions, it is believed that certain images (“icons”) actually provide access, in a spiritual sense, to the things that they depict. E.g. praying in front of an icon of the Virgin Mary provides a way to pray to her. So transitioning the term to IT makes sense, since a computer “icon” provides a way to access the functionality that is behind the icon, such as an application, module, or file.
There’s also a somewhat-old “IT Tech Support” joke about the customer who was told by support to “Click on the Netscape icon” and was rebuffed with “I’m a Protestant, I don’t believe in icons.”
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Beta, attribute, pattern, archive, store, source, code, button, language, cookie, GNU (heh), kerberos, directory, pointer, route/router/etc, protocol, hacker, security, edit/editor, vector, attack, flood, schema, kernel, driver, parallel, serial, inheritance, polymorphism, prototype, processor, instruction, program, utility, parser, token/tokenize/tokenizer, placeholder, query, index, performance, throughput, swap, paging, build, assemble, compress, cut, scan, tree, model, view, controller, exception, patch, expression, record, partition, read, write, lock, thread, font, repository, share, network, forum, storage, factory, facade, decorator, proxy, template, intepreter, iterator, observer, script, automation, deployment, cloud, mount, error, sniff/sniffer, input, output, install, update, batch, echo, carriage return, control, escape, backspace, delete, core, dump, symbol, trace, log, machine, snapshot, pipe, paramater, argument, profile, ticket…
IT stream of consciousness. Oh, yeah… “stream”, that’s one, too.
line feed, carriage return, spool, buffer (likely from railroading), ping (from sonar), virus (I’m shocked that no one has mentioned this yet), port, prompt, tablet, terminal, avatar (from Hinduism), illegal operation (IT examples don’t typically send you to prison), backbone, blob (database term meaning an object that the database can’t interpret and just has to store), bot, carbon copy, dock, site
As a recommendation, it might be a good idea to concentrate on the terms that have an interesting background. For example, avatar (Hinduism), icon (Christianity), carriage return (typewriters), line feed (typewriters), ping (sonar), virus (biology), backbone (anatomy), carbon copy (old-fashioned multipart forms), kernel (agriculture), patch (sewing), façade (architecture), factory (manufacturing)
What do you do with a misplaced DIV tag?
Put in a bug fix till it’s adjusted.
Send it to Bill for the morning meeting.
Say it’s a feature for 2.01.
Make it watch cat videos day and night.
It’s in Action Item 2043.
I think there was actually a real bug (moth) in one of those first house sized computers that caused the problem.
Perhaps that just a story though…
Function
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Dimension
It would probably be easier to find words that weren’t re-purposed.
Nope, it’s quite true. Grace Hopper (“Amazing Grace”) was in charge, and they actually taped the moth into the log book. See that page here.
If you read it carefully, it says it is the first actual case of bug being found. That indicates that the term bug = glitch was already in use or at least recognized.
And that’s what drives us to be programmers doesn’t it. “That’s not quite right”. There are many days that I would rather drive a truck.
Try the Jargon File. History and definitions, all wrapped in one, although it hasn’t been updated in about a decade, I think.