The Birthday Paradox – On Jupiter, and Beyond (2012)

Re:The Birthday Paradox – On Jupiter, and Beyond (2012) by ColinWright on Sunday March 03, 2019 @04:48PM (#19297152)

In various circles it can be called pling, bang, or shriek. These are names for the symbol, whereas "factorial" is the name for the function.

In particular the opening line of a (U|Li)nix script is:

    #!<path>

and that's sometimes called the "hash bang".

From wikipedia[0]:

    In the printing world, the exclamation
    mark can be called a screamer, a gasper,
    a slammer, or a startler.

    In hacker culture, the exclamation mark
    is called "bang", "shriek", or, in the
    British slang known as Commonwealth
    Hackish, "pling".

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exclamation_mark#Slang_and_oth...

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:The Birthday Paradox – On Jupiter, and Beyond (2012) by cbsks on Monday March 04, 2019 @01:48AM (#19299295)

Don’t forget about interrobang, aka “?!”

“Shriek” is a new one to me, however. What context is it used in?

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:The Birthday Paradox – On Jupiter, and Beyond (2012) by ColinWright on Monday March 04, 2019 @06:48AM (#19300533)

From Wikipedia[0]:

> The name given to "!" by programmers varies according to their background. In the UK the term pling was popular in the earlier days of computing, whilst in the United States, the term shriek was used. It is claimed that these word usages were invented in the US and shriek is from Stanford or MIT; however, shriek for the ! sign is found in the Oxford English Dictionary dating from the 1860s.

From another web site[1]:

> It is also called an exclamation mark or tellingly, in newspaper jargon, a shriek.

================

References:

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exclamation_mark#Computers

[1] https://www.thoughtco.com/multiple-exclamation-points-169141...

[ Parent | on HN ]