Zork name origin got an update on Wikipedia | Hacker News Reader

Zork name origin got an update on Wikipedia

dpolakovic.space

90 pointsdpola17 comments

This article has some research into possible origins of the name: https://nickm.com/post/2010/01/a-note-on-the-word-zork/comme...

According to Wikipedia, all of the original programmers are still alive.

Wouldn't it be possible to contact at least 1 of them, and settle the question? Story says author tried... Try again, ask around.

Story & comments read a lot like speculation. Why settle for that when original source(s) still exist?

The original programmers might settle the question, but Wikipedia wouldn't allow the answer.

Something similar happened a decade ago with the page for the Unix command `cron` — it contained a made-up backronym (‘command run on …’) that had once appeared in print somewhere, and the guardians of Wikipedia zealously rejected correction (it's from ‘chrono‐’) from the original author, Brian Kernighan.

The person would need to be interviewed by a 'reliable news source' or maybe just a 'reliable source' I guess. It is kind of silly, yet at the same time, without identify verification + attestation, how can they the person is who they say they are?

And if they do that, they're now becoming journalists or researchers.

(I know you likely know this, but just clarifying a bit for others to what I think the logic is)

Not necessarily. Primary sources are allowed on Wikipedia in many cases, they're just not preferred. In fact, a direct quote from an interview would be as much of a primary source as a Tweet.

https://www.gricer.com/tmrc/dictionary1959.html

---The words defined in this dictionary are the property of the Tech

   Model Railroad Club of M. I. T. and all rights to use and define

   these words are strictly reserved.---

ZORCH: to attack with an inverse heat sink.

Another of David Sawyer's sound effects, which I reinterpreted as a colorful variant of "scorch."

After a month I bring a good news.

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Zork&diff=prev&ol...

might be a more informative link to the specific change, btw.

The edit distance form work to zork is 1.

For this, and because of tab completions (perhaps tab completions post-date zork, but nonetheless) I find the work:zork story compelling. I have used the first letter is replaced by "z" trick many times (z-tab, done!), and that pre-dated any contemplation of the zork mystery.

Ah, but there are plenty of folk etymologies which, although they make a lot of logical sense, aren't true.

Also, W and Z are switched in the AZERTY keyboard. So maybe someone mistyped work on the wrong layout??

xywwy

Certainly sounds plausible. Most of the time the first thing I do after I log in to a terminal is "cd work." And if I blundered that on a french keyboard at some point it might pop into my head as a funny thing to name a project.

I can't imagine there were lots of AZERTY keyboards kicking around MIT?

Maybe a French or Canadian person typed it wrong often and complained about the weird location of the w. Don't think it is the reason but there are more than one way to explain there lines of thought.

No québécois would be caught dead with an azerty layout.

This is mentioned in the article "A Note on the Word 'Zork'", linked right above the 'pterodactyl chopper':

https://web.archive.org/web/20100112110305/https://nickm.com...

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