And that was because it's function was/is to concatenate files:
cat f1 f2 f3 >f4
Ah now I understand!
Actually catinate, which is a real word but less used. But you are still right.
In the earliest references, it was "concatenate". It wasn't until 7th edition UNIX (1979) that "catenate" was given.
References:
- 1971 draft (pre 1st edition) of the paper that would become the well-known 1974 CACM UNIX paper (earliest documentation on `cat` that I can find): https://www.tuhs.org/Archive/Distributions/Research/McIlroy_... (tune in on page 28)
- 6th edition cat(1) man page (1975): http://man.cat-v.org/unix-6th/1/cat
- 7th edition cat(1) man page (1979): http://man.cat-v.org/unix_7th/1/cat
Re:The Source History of Cat
by swoopitypoop on Tuesday November 13, 2018 @03:52PM
(#18444792)
Latin root word "catena", meaning "chain".
Latin root "con-" ("com-") meaning "with," or "together." As in, "concatenate" means something like, "chain together."
original man page: http://man.cat-v.org/unix-1st/1/cat