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That page is a goldmine of involuntary comedy. At the end of the day, the more languages you care about, the more likely you are to find some animal-related term that has become sexual slang somewhere at some point.

I understand their predicament and agree it needs a new name though (it’s actually surprising how long they’ve gone before accepting that it’s a problem, in such an anglo-dominated field as computing). I just don’t think they’ll find a solution if they stay “around a farm”... I mean, looking at other names they have, gallina in Italian is a hen, but also a very common negative slang for “stupid woman” - any Italian woman using that language would feel horribly. The whole farm-related imagery is ripe for this sort of thing.



Makes you think that Kernighan and Ritchie chose really well the least problematic name for their language.




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