[tex-live] TL Manager query

Philip Taylor (Webmaster, Ret'd) P.Taylor at Rhul.Ac.Uk
Thu Jan 6 13:20:40 CET 2011



Norbert Preining wrote:
> On Do, 06 Jan 2011, Philip Taylor (Webmaster, Ret'd) wrote:
>>> 'cat' is not recognized as an internal or external command,
>
> Bingo!!!
>
> Thanks for that. I will try to fix it ...
>
> Yes, unix has cat, all of them, Winblows of course not.

Of course : "Cat", sb., a feline quadruped.

Used in some palaeolithic operating systems to refer to
the imperative now universally known as "type"; the origins
of this confusion are lost in the mists of time, but
the rather humerous "cat is short for catenate which is
short for concatenate, even if concatentation is
impossible because there is only one thing to be
concatenated" is perhaps the most frequently cited
false etymology.  Most informed authorities accept
that the author of said "operating system" was simply
confused by the totally unexpected presence of a vowel
which rendered the word pronounceable, a near-heresy
for that time.

** P.


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