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Re: potato bugs...(ugh)



Sam Couter wrote:
  >Roland Mas <lolando@debian.org> wrote:
  >> Not sure that was a serious suggestion...  If so, I'd like to object
  >> that only in English does it make sense.  The fact that the same word
  >> can mean both any random small insect and a malfunction in a computer
  >> programme does not happen, say, in French, and I suspect it may also
  >> be the case for other languages.
  >
  >Just to be pedantic, the potato bug isn't a bug. It's a beetle, which is an
  >entirely different family of insects.

As I understand it, program bugs are so called because one of the very
first computer errors was caused by an insect getting into the circuitry.
Understandably, the computer builders weren't all that well instructed in
entomology.  I don't know if the exact species of the offending creature
was ever recorded.

-- 
Oliver Elphick                                Oliver.Elphick@lfix.co.uk
Isle of Wight                              http://www.lfix.co.uk/oliver
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