elvish n.
1. The Tengwar of Feanor, a table of letterforms resembling
the beautiful Celtic half-uncial hand of the "Book of Kells".
Invented and described by J. R. R. Tolkien in "The Lord of The
Rings" as an orthography for his fictional `elvish' languages,
this system (which is both visually and phonetically elegant) has long fascinated hackers (who tend
to be intrigued by artificial languages in general). It is
traditional for graphics printers, plotters, window systems, and
the like to support a Feanorian typeface as one of their demo
items. See also elder days. 2.
By extension, any odd or unreadable typeface produced by a
graphics device. 3. The typeface mundanely called `Böcklin',
an art-Noveau display font.
Node:EMACS, Next:email, Previous:elvish, Up:= E
=
EMACS /ee'maks/ n.
[from Editing MACroS] The ne plus ultra of hacker editors, a
programmable text editor with an entire LISP system inside it. It
was originally written by Richard Stallman in TECO under ITS at the
MIT AI lab; AI Memo 554 described it as "an advanced,
self-documenting, customizable, extensible real-time display
editor". It has since been reimplemented any number of times, by
various hackers, and versions exist that run under most major
operating systems. Perhaps the most widely used version, also
written by Stallman and now called "GNU
EMACS" or GNUMACS, runs principally
under Unix. (Its close relative XEmacs is the second most popular
version.) It includes facilities to run compilation subprocesses
and send and receive mail or news; many hackers spend up to 80%
of their tube time inside it.
Other variants include GOSMACS, CCA
EMACS, UniPress EMACS, Montgomery EMACS, jove, epsilon, and
MicroEMACS. (Though we use the original all-caps spelling here,
it is nowadays very commonly `Emacs'.)
Some EMACS versions running under window managers iconify as
an overflowing kitchen sink, perhaps to suggest the one feature
the editor does not (yet) include. Indeed, some hackers find
EMACS too heavyweight and baroque for their taste, and expand the
name as `Escape Meta Alt Control Shift' to spoof its heavy
reliance on keystrokes decorated with bucky bits. Other spoof expansions
include `Eight Megabytes And Constantly Swapping' (from when that
was a lot of core), `Eventually
malloc()s All Computer Storage', and `EMACS Makes A
Computer Slow' (see recursive
acronym). See also vi.
Node:email, Next:emoticon, Previous:EMACS, Up:= E
=
email /ee'mayl/
(also written `e-mail' and `E-mail') 1. n. Electronic mail
automatically passed through computer networks and/or via modems
over common-carrier lines. Contrast snail-mail, paper-net, voice-net. See network address. 2. vt. To send
electronic mail.
Oddly enough, the word `emailed' is actually listed in the
OED; it means "embossed (with a raised pattern) or perh. arranged
in a net or open work". A use from 1480 is given. The word is
probably derived from French `émaillé' (enameled)
and related to Old French `emmailleüre' (network). A French
correspondent tells us that in modern French, `email' is a hard
enamel obtained by heating special paints in a furnace; an
`emailleur' (no final e) is a craftsman who makes email (he
generally paints some objects (like, say, jewelry) and cooks them
in a furnace).
There are numerous spelling variants of this word. In Internet
traffic up to 1995, `email' predominates, `e-mail' runs a
not-too-distant second, and `E-mail' and `Email' are a distant
third and fourth.
Node:emoticon, Next:EMP, Previous:email, Up:= E
=
emoticon /ee-moh'ti-kon/ n.
[common] An ASCII glyph used to indicate an emotional state in
email or news. Although originally intended mostly as jokes,
emoticons (or some other explicit humor indication) are virtually
required under certain circumstances in high-volume text-only
communication forums such as Usenet; the lack of verbal and
visual cues can otherwise cause what were intended to be
humorous, sarcastic, ironic, or otherwise non-100%-serious
comments to be badly misinterpreted (not always even by newbies), resulting in arguments and flame wars.
Hundreds of emoticons have been proposed, but only a few are
in common use. These include:
:-)
`smiley face' (for humor, laughter, friendliness,
occasionally sarcasm)
:-(
`frowney face' (for sadness, anger, or upset)
;-)
`half-smiley' (ha ha
only serious); also known as `semi-smiley' or `winkey
face'.
:-/
`wry face'
(These may become more comprehensible if you tilt your head
sideways, to the left.)
The first two listed are by far the most frequently
encountered. Hyphenless forms of them are common on CompuServe,
GEnie, and BIX; see also bixie. On
Usenet, `smiley' is often used as a
generic term synonymous with emoticon, as well as specifically for the
happy-face emoticon.
It appears that the emoticon was invented by one Scott Fahlman
on the CMU bboard systems sometime
between early 1981 and mid-1982. He later wrote: "I wish I had
saved the original post, or at least recorded the date for
posterity, but I had no idea that I was starting something that
would soon pollute all the world's communication channels." [GLS
confirms that he remembers this original posting].
Note for the newbie: Overuse of
the smiley is a mark of loserhood! More than one per paragraph is
a fairly sure sign that you've gone over the line.
Node:EMP, Next:empire, Previous:emoticon, Up:=
E =