[Ads-l] Grace Murray Hopper Honored by Yale

[Shapiro, Fred]

That's precisely what I've been saying for over thirty years.  I have traced "debugging" back to 1941, but "bug" is found in the relevant sense as far back as 1875.

Fred Shapiro


________________________________
From: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU> on behalf of Dave Wilton <dave at WILTON.NET>
Sent: Sunday, February 12, 2017 9:36 PM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject: Re: Grace Murray Hopper Honored by Yale

It's much older than that. "Bug" was in engineering use long before
computers were on the scene. Thomas Edison used "bug" to mean a fault or
problem with a device as far back as 1878. (The OED has a different
Edison-related citation from 1889.) Computer scientists did not invent the
term.

https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__www.wordorigins.org_index.php_more_204_&d=CwICAg&c=-dg2m7zWuuDZ0MUcV7Sdqw&r=NvsW-OhBbzxE92nK31T2wnmV21_Bx7bPCKzIsk5T4FQ&m=aw18fDjW3UjM-FYXIbOstZgwRzd2yB9cP1tU3S03CPc&s=Z8yOpD4pHk7_h9z0KYYG4HSSMw3wjrFvkZIMrdfLuGs&e=

-----Original Message-----
From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf Of
Shapiro, Fred
Sent: Sunday, February 12, 2017 5:29 PM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject: Re: [ADS-L] Grace Murray Hopper Honored by Yale

I was the first to really question the Hopper/moth myth, in several articles
beginning in the 1980s.  The definitive citations are given by Peggy Kidwell
in an article in the IEEE Annals of the History of Computing.  I believe she
traced "debugging" back to 1944.

Fred Shapiro


________________________________
From: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU> on behalf of James
A. Landau <JJJRLandau at NETSCAPE.COM>
Sent: Sunday, February 12, 2017 6:16 PM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject: Re: Grace Murray Hopper Honored by Yale

On Sun, 12 Feb 2017 03:40:52 Zone + 0000 "Shapiro, Fred"
<fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU> wrote:



<quote>

<snip>  But I am curious whether Hopper's principal claim to popular fame,
the colorful but wholly erroneous claim that she coined the term "bug" for
defects in computer hardware or software, will be repeated by the media or
Yale in connection with the naming.

</quote>



The log entry (see
https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__www.wired.com_2013_12_g
oogles-2Ddoodle-2Dhonors-2Dgrace-2Dhopper-2Dand-2Dentomology_&d=CwIGaQ&c=-dg
2m7zWuuDZ0MUcV7Sdqw&r=NvsW-OhBbzxE92nK31T2wnmV21_Bx7bPCKzIsk5T4FQ&m=hyxZT5RC
9uRyTcJTjcZdt0eZnwydk9AhUkflybrd_E8&s=ZZShkZv4cSEiZhOpWfRHxmdAzhMU02QRkDSyhS
zS4Xw&e= )
[https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__www.wired.com_wp-2Dcontent_uploads_images-5Fblogs_wiredscience_2013_12_&d=CwICAg&c=-dg2m7zWuuDZ0MUcV7Sdqw&r=NvsW-OhBbzxE92nK31T2wnmV21_Bx7bPCKzIsk5T4FQ&m=aw18fDjW3UjM-FYXIbOstZgwRzd2yB9cP1tU3S03CPc&s=Z8SZM6JU7k0nKjG55jCAlp5z0xQngmLUsMONqx4YaOs&e=
grace-hoppers-107th-birthday-5447077240766464.4-hp.gif]<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__www.wired.com_2013_12_googles-2Ddoodle-2Dhonors-2Dgrace-2Dhopper-2Dand-2Dentomology_&d=CwIGaQ&c=-dg2m7zWuuDZ0MUcV7Sdqw&r=NvsW-OhBbzxE92nK31T2wnmV21_Bx7bPCKzIsk5T4FQ&m=hyxZT5RC9uRyTcJTjcZdt0eZnwydk9AhUkflybrd_E8&s=ZZShkZv4cSEiZhOpWfRHxmdAzhMU02QRkDSyhSzS4Xw&e=>

Google Honors Grace Hopper.and a
"bug"<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__www.wired.com_2013_12_googles-2Ddoodle-2Dhonors-2Dgrace-2Dhopper-2Dand-2Dentomology_&d=CwIGaQ&c=-dg2m7zWuuDZ0MUcV7Sdqw&r=NvsW-OhBbzxE92nK31T2wnmV21_Bx7bPCKzIsk5T4FQ&m=hyxZT5RC9uRyTcJTjcZdt0eZnwydk9AhUkflybrd_E8&s=ZZShkZv4cSEiZhOpWfRHxmdAzhMU02QRkDSyhSzS4Xw&e=>
urldefense.proofpoint.com
The December 9th, 2013 Google Doodle Honors Grace Hopper's 107th
Birthday...and has an entomological surprise at the end!



reads "First actual case of bug being found".



This strongly implies (if not proves) that the term "bug" for a technical
problem was already in existence and widely known, and that this was the
first actual case of a actual biological bug (in this case a moth) causing
such a bug.



The above-quoted website also suggests that the term "debugging" was
invented around this time, if not by Dr. Hopper.  Anyone have data?



- Jim Landau



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Netscape.  Just the Net You Need.



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