A fable of the technological era

[vvvexation]

Unbeknownst to many, there existed in the early days of the Internet a small cadre of computer-savvy castrati dwelling in southeastern Germany. BSD was their operating system of choice, and when they discovered an online bulletin board dedicated to the discussion of said operating system, they all attempted to join en masse. Unfortunately, they ran into trouble when it came time to select their user handles; although there were clearly posted rules explaining that usernames would be assigned according to a universal system, the German contingent demanded that they be allowed to choose their own, claiming that otherwise their individuality would be suppressed. The beleaguered system administrator, unable either to talk them out of or to comply with their request, was forced to simply reject their petitions for membership outright.

This would not in itself have been a particularly tragic story, were it not that the somewhat excitable would-be users in question interpreted this rejection (as, indeed, they tended to interpret any rejection) as a slur against their lost manhood; several of them, in fact, grew so incensed that they sought out the unfortunate sysadmin's home address, and before their fellows could stop them, they descended upon his home and shot the poor man dead.

When the shocking news of his demise reached the discussion boards he had administered, the users one and all were deeply saddened, but none of them were terribly surprised once the details of the story had come to light. After all, as one of them pointed out...

...when you nix Munich eunuchs' unique Unix nicks, Munich's Unix eunuchs nix you.


(crossposted to, illustrated by, and closing line derived in conjunction with saizai)

Comments

[tsgeisel.livejournal.com]

There's only one reason to use the word "unbeknownst" and it's to setup punchlines just like this one.

[vvvexation.livejournal.com]

*hangs head in shame*

[vvvexation.livejournal.com]

*only not really*

[saizai.livejournal.com]

THAT'S the word I was trying to think of earlier. Unbeknownst.

It's a middle-English conjugation. WTF is it doing staying around?

[vvvexation.livejournal.com]

'S'not like we don't have other ones sticking around as well.

[saizai.livejournal.com]

Yeah, but it's still weird. Is it productive?

[vvvexation.livejournal.com]

That's like asking if earlobes are productive. Who cares, they're fun to nibble on. ;-)

[saizai.livejournal.com]

That was "productive" in the formal sense. I.e., are there other things you can make with the same conjugation (-nst) that are in similar use, vs. this having calcified into a set word and lost its derivability.

[vvvexation.livejournal.com]

Oh. Well, I imagine not, but I can put the question to a linguist or two.

[(Anonymous)]

Well, not only is "-nst" not a currently productive form, it apparently never was!

http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?search=unbeknownst&searchmode=none

If anyone can think of ANY other words with this form, it would be interesting indeed (although my guess is that any words following this pattern would have been created through analogy to "unbeknownst" and therefore only appear after it was coined in the 19th century).