Date:  Fri, 17 May 1996 08:31:28 EDT

From:  Arnold Zwicky <zwicky[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]LING.OHIO-STATE.EDU>

Subject: Re: biff



>Net folklore has it that the guy who wrote the function named

>it after his dog.



the story of biff is told, i believe, in The Hacker's Dictionary

(my copy of which is in my california house, alas, but it's

available several places on the net).



biff, the dog, barked whenever the mail carrier came.



and the guy who wrote the function was a woman. a specific

known woman; my daughter, who is a large-scale unix

systems administrator, knows her, but i, being a linguist

who knows infinitestimal amounts about unix, have forgotten

her name.



arnold (zwicky[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ling.ohio-state.edu)