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The Origin of the word Daemon
- billybob 15y agoI've always wondered about this. Also: I pronounce "daemon" as "DAY-mun," as opposed to "demon", which I pronounce "DEE-mun." Do the rest of you make this distinction?
- troels 15y agoYes, I do. The only problem then, is how to pronounce Damon, as in Matt.
- SamColes 15y agoSee, Team America: World Police for clarification.
- saddino 15y agoThe guy from the Bourne Shell Identity?
- trafficlight 15y agoDAY-mun. But you really gotta drag out the AY.
- damoncali 15y agoAs an authority on the subject, I submit that since "Damon" is pronounced Day-mun, that "daemon" must be pronounced Dee-mun, as it's just an alternate spelling of "demon". But mostly I just want to stop being confused whenever someone says "daemon" around the office, and I think they're talking to me.
- Osiris 15y agoTypically in English, an e after a vowel indicates the vowel should make a hard sound rather than soft. So looking at it that way, Daemon should have a hard a (like the name of the letter), thus DAY-mon.
- koenigdavidmj 15y agoIt really gets interesting when you work (as a sysadmin in a Unix shop) for a guy with that name.
- yardie 15y agoI pronounce it DAY-mun when speaking to other UNIX hackers and DEE-mun when speaking to windows users or regular users. I've never been formerly told how to pronounce it when I started hacking in Redhat. Since most early hackers were smarter than most I assumed there was some sort of word trickery involved (met another guy that pronounced it DAY-EE-mun) that would make me stick out like a newb.
- dkersten 15y agoI do it the opposite. I've known for a long time how it was meant to be pronounced, so when talking to other programmers/hacker types, I say DEE-mun, but when talking to ordinary people I say DAE-mun so they don't say "wtf demons on computers now?" or somesuch - most don't, but some more religious types look at you funny...
- yardie 15y agoI guess I was overthinking it. Thanks!
- andrewl 15y agoI've always said "DEE-mun," just as I say Julius SEE-zer, not SAY-zer.
- yalue 15y agoI've always said "DIE-mun" just as I say Yulius "KAI-zer"...
- cafard 15y agoDammit, now I want to say CHEEser VILhelm...
- eru 15y agoAccording to Wikipedia the native speakers said [ˈkajsar].
- cstavish 15y agoUnfortunately, the Classical Latin pronunciation is not used colloquially, so in everyday life, I must stray from what I learned, lest I be viewed as the incorrect one.
- ignifero 15y agoto stay true to their ancient greek origin, you should pronounce them 'deh-mon
- sigzero 15y agoI say it exactly like you do.
- ltamake 15y agoYeah, I do that too. I first did it by accident but I liked the distinction between the two words so I just pronounce daemon like that.
- Aloisius 15y agoI also pronounce it DAY-mon like GAY-lic.
- zephjc 15y agohttp://dictionary.reference.com/browse/daemon http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/daemon Pronounces it DEE-mon which is how I've always said it. (The Golden Compass audiobooks and movie also pronounce their spirit animals, called Daemons, as DEE-mon). I always thought the UNIX term came from the meaning of a subordinate/helper spirit (which is what they are, basically - helper services) Edit: interchangeably, DEE-mon or DEE-mun
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- deleted 15y ago[deleted]
- lakeeffect 15y agoI would pronounce it dea-mon. I think there exists a clouded shift on the vowel pair.
- loevborg 15y agoSo Unix daemons are descendants of Maxwell's daemon. But we need not forget that Maxwell's demon is part of a long series of philosophical thought experiments, including Laplace's demon and Descartes's malin génie. In Ancient Greek "daimōn" just means God or Deity without the connotation of evil.
- dpapathanasiou 15y agoThat reminds me of this story, about the BSD Daemon logo (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Bsd_daemon.jpg http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Bsd_daemon.jpg) on a T shirt in Texas: http://rmitz.org/freebsd.daemon.html http://rmitz.org/freebsd.daemon.html
- ignifero 15y agoTo be fair, James Maxwell is an indirect link to the word demon. I like the word, despite it's evil nature. I imagine daemons as devilish little programs hiding behind your back as you work, and I 've always been a fan of the freebsd demon. Its also infinitely better than "services"
- Symmetry 15y agoIt seems to me like the word "genie" in modern English(from the same root I suspect) gets across the idea very well without all the misleading associations.
- smcl 15y agoGenie is from the arabic "jinn"
- Symmetry 15y agoI decided to actually look it up, and according to an etymology dictionary: "1650s, "tutelary spirit," from Fr. génie, from L. genius (see genius); used in French translation of "Arabian Nights" to render Arabic jinni, singular of jinn, which it accidentally resembled, and attested in English with this sense from 1748." On the other hand, my above post absolutely deserved to be downvoted because it is entirely unclear that I meant "The same root as 'malin génie' (evil genius in the 16th century sense of 'genious' as an inspirational spirit) as opposed to demon.
- coliveira 15y agoFor some time I though that the word deamon was used because it has to fork processes, and in western imagery forks are associated to demons.
- cafard 15y agodaemon goes back well before Socrates; one finds it in Homer, sometimes with a negative implication, sometimes neutrally.
- strickjb 15y agoI just noticed my alma mater hosted this article. Let's go Hokies!!
- pasbesoin 15y agoIf you want to take things further, there are arguments that "demon" comes from the area that is now more or less India, and that the negativity associated now associated with the term "in the west" was created as part of the struggle of one religion to dominate over another (likely corresponding to the desire of one polity to dominate over the other(s)... but my memory gets even fuzzier at this point). Anyway, I, too, pronounce it "daemon". I find this makes a useful distinction; also, I figure why insult the processes from which I'm hoping to receive good things. ;-)
- dspillett 15y ago> and that the negativity associated now associated with the term "in the west" was created as part of the struggle of one religion to dominate over another Many things that the west considers evil in that way comes from other religions (mainly the large number of "nature" religions that get lumped under the banner of "pagan") and is that way from the early days of Christianity as it marched through Europe. The cloven feet of the devil and other spawn of hell, as commonly depicted, are thought to originally have been a reference to Pan by the Christian artists of the day. It isn't just evil: even more friendly imaginary come from similar backgrounds: the Easter bunny and hunting eggs at Easter are references back to "Pagan" rituals/gods - as groups converted to Christianity they kept some of their old festivals and such (in a more and more bastardised form as time passed). Most of what we in the west do at the back end of December has (or had originally) very little to do with Christianity (even ignoring the fair chunk of it came about in the last century or two). There were many "pagan" festivals around that time, mostly of the form of some sort of thanks giving (thanking their Gods or other forces for allowing them to survive past the shortest days of the year, or congratulating themselves for the same), but until 800-and-something AD the Christians didn't mark the birth of Christ at that time. The ceremonies at Easter were (and largely still are) far far more important to them.
- eneveu 15y agoFunny coincidence. I've just started reading "Daemon", the technotriller by Daniel Suarez. Great book so far (currently around page 130). I usually only read while commuting (2 hours / day), but this book is so exciting, I found myself reading it at home too. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daemon_%28technothriller_series%29 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daemon_%28technothriller_series...
- turar 15y agoSometimes daemons can turn into zombies too. The magical world of Unix. :)
- danielsoneg 15y agoThat the term originates with Maxwell's Daemon, which is fundamentally an entropy-reducing agent, is rather apropos - would that all our daemons performed so well.
- Scriptor 15y agoI'd be interested in the quantum mechanics explanation of how the daemon reduces entropy. When I discussed the thought experiment with some friends we simply concluded that the very act of sorting the molecules is introducing outside energy into the system allowing local entropy to be reduced, just like any other machine. The total entropy of the universe would stay the same and the laws of thermodynamics are still intact.
- rdtsc 15y agoEven more interesting the outside energy also includes information, as it is needed to figure out which are the slow and the fast molecules. But in the end it is a bogus idea (even as a thought experiment) since quantum mechanics comes into play in real life.
- losethos 15y agoThe irony is anyone could be at the cutting edge of physics pretty easily. Take a microsecond stopwatch and use it for random numbers, one num per press. Then pick from words, phrases, pages... it's a no-cheat ouija board. If you prefer, crack-open a book randomly, by hand or flip a coin for random numbers. The Cain and Abel story is probably the most important in the Bible. Jesus said loving God was the most important commandment -- you should experment to see what He likes. Give good praise, like "the smell of rain". Or "sing a new song to the Lord" as the Bible says 7 times. God said there is justice -- better offering, better response. Experminat. Tongues: http://www.usccb.org/nab/bible/1corinthians/1corinthians14.htm http://www.usccb.org/nab/bible/1corinthians/1corinthians14.h... or http://www.usccb.org/nab/bible/acts/acts2.htm http://www.usccb.org/nab/bible/acts/acts2.htm Knowing God: http://www.usccb.org/nab/bible/numbers/numbers11.htm http://www.usccb.org/nab/bible/numbers/numbers11.htm Precident for riddles--it's gift-wrapping: http://www.usccb.org/nab/bible/daniel/daniel5.htm http://www.usccb.org/nab/bible/daniel/daniel5.htm Precedent for offerings. (This is my favorite) http://www.usccb.org/nab/bible/malachi/malachi1.htm http://www.usccb.org/nab/bible/malachi/malachi1.htm Don't do animals -- use your head: Read verse 14: http://www.usccb.org/nab/bible/psalms/psalm50.htm http://www.usccb.org/nab/bible/psalms/psalm50.htm More spiritual advice: http://www.losethos.com/doc/AENotes.html http://www.losethos.com/doc/AENotes.html God says, "remittest enlightening apprehend reproves brides fable requital Juno ."
- Osiris 15y agoHas no one mentioned the absolutely horrid brown on green color scheme? I need to use developer tools to change the page so I can actually read it!
- alanthonyc 15y agoThat's what readability is for. https://www.readability.com/ https://www.readability.com/
- atsaloli 15y agohttp://admin.com/samples/Daemons.pdf http://admin.com/samples/Daemons.pdf has the term originating at CTSS at MIT in the early 60's.