eric@snark.uu.net (Eric S. Raymond) (02/12/89)
In article <10350@ut-emx.uucp>, nather@ut-emx.UUCP (Ed Nather) writes: > I'm interested in this use of "random" as a noun -- it's the first I've > encountered. Is this local usage, coined for the occasion, or what? MIT-originated hacker slang. Refers to a member of some class of persons specified by context, with the strong implication that members of that class are interchangeable from speaker's point of view. The phrase "a random" with no apparent referent may be expanded to "a random twit", or "a random nuisance" or "a random person-who-wouldn't-matter-except-for-being-annoying". This particular noun-ization is related to the adjectival usages seen in "some random luser", "any random file", or in the ur-name "J. Random Hacker". -- Eric S. Raymond (the mad mastermind of TMN-Netnews) Email: eric@snark.uu.net CompuServe: [72037,2306] Post: 22 S. Warren Avenue, Malvern, PA 19355 Phone: (215)-296-5718