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<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><head><title>Chapter 1. Hacker Slang and Hacker Culture</title><link rel="stylesheet" href="jargon.css" type="text/css"/><meta name="generator" content="DocBook XSL Stylesheets V1.61.0"/><link rel="home" href="index.html" title="The Jargon File"/><link rel="up" href="pt01.html" title="Part I. Introduction"/><link rel="previous" href="pt01.html" title="Part I. Introduction"/><link rel="next" href="distinctions.html" title="Chapter 2. Of Slang, Jargon, and Techspeak"/></head><body><div class="navheader"><table width="100%" summary="Navigation header"><tr><th colspan="3" align="center">Chapter 1. Hacker Slang and Hacker Culture</th></tr><tr><td width="20%" align="left"><a accesskey="p" href="pt01.html">Prev</a> </td><th width="60%" align="center">Part I. Introduction</th><td width="20%" align="right"> <a accesskey="n" href="distinctions.html">Next</a></td></tr></table><hr/></div><div class="chapter" lang="en"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h2 class="title"><a id="introduction"/>Chapter 1. Hacker Slang and Hacker Culture</h2></div></div><div/></div><p>This document is a collection of slang terms used by various subcultures
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of computer hackers. Though some technical material is included for
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background and flavor, it is not a technical dictionary; what we describe here
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is the language hackers use among themselves for fun, social communication,
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and technical debate. </p><p>The ‘hacker culture’ is actually a loosely networked
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collection of subcultures that is nevertheless conscious of some important
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shared experiences, shared roots, and shared values. It has its own myths,
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heroes, villains, folk epics, in-jokes, taboos, and dreams. Because hackers
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as a group are particularly creative people who define themselves partly by
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rejection of ‘normal’ values and working habits, it has unusually
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rich and conscious traditions for an intentional culture less than 50 years
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old.</p><p>As usual with slang, the special vocabulary of hackers helps hold places
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in the community and expresses shared values and experiences. Also as usual,
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<span class="emphasis"><em>not</em></span> knowing the slang (or using it inappropriately)
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defines one as an outsider, a mundane, or (worst of all in hackish vocabulary)
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possibly even a <a href="S/suit.html"><i class="glossterm">suit</i></a>. All human cultures use slang in
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this threefold way — as a tool of communication, and of inclusion, and
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of exclusion.</p><p>Among hackers, though, slang has a subtler aspect, paralleled perhaps in
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the slang of jazz musicians and some kinds of fine artists but hard to detect
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in most technical or scientific cultures; parts of it are code for shared
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states of <span class="emphasis"><em>consciousness</em></span>. There is a whole range of
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altered states and problem-solving mental stances basic to high-level hacking
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which don't fit into conventional linguistic reality any better than a
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Coltrane solo or one of Maurits Escher's surreal <span class="foreignphrase"><i class="foreignphrase">trompe
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l'oeil</i></span> compositions (Escher is a favorite of hackers), and
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hacker slang encodes these subtleties in many unobvious ways. As a simple
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example, take the distinction between a <a href="K/kluge.html"><i class="glossterm">kluge</i></a> and an
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<a href="E/elegant.html"><i class="glossterm">elegant</i></a> solution, and the differing connotations
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attached to each. The distinction is not only of engineering significance; it
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reaches right back into the nature of the generative processes in program
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design and asserts something important about two different kinds of
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relationship between the hacker and the hack. Hacker slang is unusually rich
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in implications of this kind, of overtones and undertones that illuminate the
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hackish psyche.</p><p>Hackers, as a rule, love wordplay and are very conscious and inventive
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in their use of language. These traits seem to be common in young children,
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but the conformity-enforcing machine we are pleased to call an educational
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system bludgeons them out of most of us before adolescence. Thus, linguistic
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invention in most subcultures of the modern West is a halting and largely
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unconscious process. Hackers, by contrast, regard slang formation and use as
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a game to be played for conscious pleasure. Their inventions thus display an
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almost unique combination of the neotenous enjoyment of language-play with the
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discrimination of educated and powerful intelligence. Further, the electronic
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media which knit them together are fluid, ‘hot’ connections, well
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adapted to both the dissemination of new slang and the ruthless culling of
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weak and superannuated specimens. The results of this process give us perhaps
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a uniquely intense and accelerated view of linguistic evolution in action.
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</p><p>Hacker slang also challenges some common linguistic and anthropological
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assumptions. For example, in the early 1990s it became fashionable to speak
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of ‘low-context’ versus ‘high-context’ communication,
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and to classify cultures by the preferred context level of their languages and
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art forms. It is usually claimed that low-context communication
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(characterized by precision, clarity, and completeness of self-contained
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utterances) is typical in cultures which value logic, objectivity,
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individualism, and competition; by contrast, high-context communication
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(elliptical, emotive, nuance-filled, multi-modal, heavily coded) is associated
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with cultures which value subjectivity, consensus, cooperation, and tradition.
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What then are we to make of hackerdom, which is themed around extremely
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low-context interaction with computers and exhibits primarily
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“<span class="quote">low-context</span>” values, but cultivates an almost absurdly
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high-context slang style?</p><p>The intensity and consciousness of hackish invention make a compilation
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of hacker slang a particularly effective window into the surrounding culture
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— and, in fact, this one is the latest version of an evolving
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compilation called the ‘Jargon File’, maintained by hackers
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themselves since the early 1970s. This one (like its ancestors) is primarily
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a lexicon, but also includes topic entries which collect background or
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sidelight information on hacker culture that would be awkward to try to
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subsume under individual slang definitions. </p><p>Though the format is that of a reference volume, it is intended that the
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material be enjoyable to browse. Even a complete outsider should find at
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least a chuckle on nearly every page, and much that is amusingly
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thought-provoking. But it is also true that hackers use humorous wordplay to
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make strong, sometimes combative statements about what they feel. Some of
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these entries reflect the views of opposing sides in disputes that have been
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genuinely passionate; this is deliberate. We have not tried to moderate or
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pretty up these disputes; rather we have attempted to ensure that
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<span class="emphasis"><em>everyone's</em></span> sacred cows get gored, impartially.
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Compromise is not particularly a hackish virtue, but the honest presentation
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of divergent viewpoints is.</p><p>The reader with minimal computer background who finds some references
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incomprehensibly technical can safely ignore them. We have not felt it either
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necessary or desirable to eliminate all such; they, too, contribute flavor,
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and one of this document's major intended audiences — fledgling hackers
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already partway inside the culture — will benefit from them.</p><p>A selection of longer items of hacker folklore and humor is included in
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<a href="appendixa.html" title="Appendix A. Hacker Folklore">Appendix A</a>. The ‘outside’
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reader's attention is particularly directed to the Portrait of J. Random
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Hacker in <a href="appendixb.html" title="Appendix B. A Portrait of J. Random Hacker">Appendix B</a>. The <a href="pt03.html#bibliography" title="Bibliography">Bibliography</a>, lists some non-technical works
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which have either influenced or described the hacker culture. </p><p>Because hackerdom is an intentional culture (one each individual must
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choose by action to join), one should not be surprised that the line between
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description and influence can become more than a little blurred. Earlier
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versions of the Jargon File have played a central role in spreading hacker
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language and the culture that goes with it to successively larger populations,
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and we hope and expect that this one will do likewise. </p></div><div class="navfooter"><hr/><table width="100%" summary="Navigation footer"><tr><td width="40%" align="left"><a accesskey="p" href="pt01.html">Prev</a> </td><td width="20%" align="center"><a accesskey="u" href="pt01.html">Up</a></td><td width="40%" align="right"> <a accesskey="n" href="distinctions.html">Next</a></td></tr><tr><td width="40%" align="left" valign="top">Part I. Introduction </td><td width="20%" align="center"><a accesskey="h" href="index.html">Home</a></td><td width="40%" align="right" valign="top"> Chapter 2. Of Slang, Jargon, and Techspeak</td></tr></table></div></body></html>
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