Thursday, November 11, 2004

fun geek lore

According to Bill Bryson (don’t worry, this is the last of it – I’m almost done with the book!), DOS “originated as Q-DOS (a play on kudos), and stood, rather daringly, for Quick and Dirty Operating System. When Microsoft bought the firm in 1981, it changed the name to the more staid MS-DOS, for Microsoft Disk Operating System." I guess I pretty much knew all of that, except the "kudos" part. I think that's kinda neat. (Hey, remember those chocolate & granola bars by the same name? Are they still around?)

I also learned 2 more fun facts (from Made In America) in recent days: one, that the "ouija" from Ouija Boards comes, simply, from the concatenation of the words for "yes" in the French and German languages. Another one of those that-makes-sense-but-I-had-never-thought-of-it-before words. And two, "bleachers" were so named for places for baseball fans to sit and watch the game, because those who sat in the uncovered part of the grandstand were "bleached by the sun". Well, I thought they were both neat little tidbits.

And hey lastly but certainly not least(-ly?), Bill Bryson is left-handed - yay! I am glad to hear it - and I'm not surprised. Always good to hear when there are more of us out there, though. Especially when they're as cool as that guy, and know so much.

1 comment:

Adrian said...

Thanks for sharing those little intellectual shards.

I had wondered why they say "Bleachers" in the US before actually. It's the kind of thing you always intend to ask an American one day.