"chad"--a possible origin

[Jesse Sheidlower]

On Sun, Nov 19, 2000 at 12:51:34PM -0500, David Bergdahl wrote:
> ... if <chad> is <ch>ip + <a>utomatic <d>ata, then why in Barry's post
> does one source give the Hebrew plural chadim?

I don't think for a second that _chad_ has an acronymic etymology,
but the answer to the second quesion is surely that computer
types often use amusing unetymological plurals; there are various
words with _-im_ plurals, such as _frobnitz, frobnitzim_, and
even more with _-en_ plurals, such as _Vax, Vaxen._

I'll let Gareth go into more detail.

Jesse Sheidlower
OED