# (L)Users **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [April 8, 2003, 10:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/l-users/167280 "2003-04-08T10:55:15Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![phyre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/b77776/32.png) [@phyre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/phyre)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2003, 10:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/l-users/167280/1 "2003-04-08T10:55:15Z")
Some background: I am a Lansa programmer in a fairly large FMCG company. I’m on friendly terms with the technicians, we smoke together, joke around, etc. It’s been a long day already, and it’s not even lunch time yet. The techies have been running around, sorting out PC’s, you know the usual stuff. I have been running around, phoning, etc, helping employess with the new system we launched thats got so many bugs/glitches you would swear there is a M$ label on the box… anyhoo… the brunt of the matter is, a (l)user phones one of the technicians, not because her PC is fried, neither because her software has gone belly up. No, the reason for this top priority call is… there is a cockroach on her desk 🙂 So she calls I.T.? hehehehe. yeah, sure. Didja know #3843234 : I read in a training manual years ago, the reason computer glitches are called bugs, is because back in the day, somebodies printer stopped working. Upon opening the device up, a small insect was found squished in the mechanics, hence the term ‘bug’ was coined. YMMV, for further queries contact the I.T helpdesk on ext xXxX. This is NOT a rant, just some pointless stuff for y’all to laff at 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Tusculan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ecd19e/32.png) [@Tusculan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tusculan)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2003, 11:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/l-users/167280/2 "2003-04-08T11:16:03Z")
I know this is not GQ, but: actually the origin of the term ‘bug’ is different. See [this page](http://info.astrian.net/jargon/terms/b/bug.html). The term was already in use before computers were around. There was a story of Grace Hopper finding one of the first actual bugs. See pictures and story[here](http://www.lewhill.com/firstcomputerbug.html) and [here](http://www.digidome.nl/history1.htm). ---
**Author:** ![garius](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e19b73/32.png) [@garius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/garius)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2003, 11:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/l-users/167280/3 "2003-04-08T11:18:45Z")
You think you’ve got it bad, i have to design for government inspectors who, bless their little cotton socks, are quite frankly at the arse end of the user spectrum - IT illliterate, highly vocal and critical, obsessed by their own self-worth but not prepared to learn. (Although i admit i’m generalising - they are a few nice ones). I once put my fist through the bottom of my desk draw after talking to one particularly gittish example. And… From the [Jargon File](http://info.astrian.net/jargon/terms/b.html#bug) > [@](#): > > Historical note: Admiral Grace Hopper (an early computing pioneer better known for inventing COBOL) liked to tell a story in which a technician solved a glitch in the Harvard Mark II machine by pulling an actual insect out from between the contacts of one of its relays, and she subsequently promulgated bug in its hackish sense as a joke about the incident (though, as she was careful to admit, she was not there when it happened). For many years the logbook associated with the incident and the actual bug in question (a moth) sat in a display case at the Naval Surface Warfare Center (NSWC). The entire story, with a picture of the logbook and the moth taped into it, is recorded in the “Annals of the History of Computing”, Vol. 3, No. 3 (July 1981), pp. 285-286. It does, however, point out that it was a common telephone term before then and goes into the history of how that came about. Well worth a read. ---
**Author:** ![garius](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e19b73/32.png) [@garius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/garius)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2003, 11:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/l-users/167280/4 "2003-04-08T11:20:02Z")
noooo beaten to the post. Damn you **TTT**! Damn you! ---
**Author:** ![phyre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/b77776/32.png) [@phyre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/phyre)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2003, 12:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/l-users/167280/5 "2003-04-08T12:14:18Z")
i sit corrected 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![garius](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e19b73/32.png) [@garius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/garius)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2003, 12:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/l-users/167280/6 "2003-04-08T12:19:42Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by phyre \* > \*\*i sit corrected 🙂 \*\* you weren’t far off to begin with - you just needed the anally retentive people like **TTT** and myself to clarify 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Tusculan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ecd19e/32.png) [@Tusculan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tusculan)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2003, 1:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/l-users/167280/7 "2003-04-08T13:57:59Z")
Jay! Finally beaten someone to the post! 🆒 Sorry, garius. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![garius](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e19b73/32.png) [@garius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/garius)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2003, 2:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/l-users/167280/8 "2003-04-08T14:26:20Z")
maybe but my post looked prettier 😉