6 ms·

The story of the etymology is one thing, but the common understanding of what "daemon" is, outside of computing, speaks to the inherent volatility and evolution

by mikece 5y ago

The story of the etymology is one thing, but the common understanding of what "daemon" is, outside of computing, speaks to the inherent volatility and evolution of meanings in the English language. If you check Webster's dictionary[1] you'll see that (1) it's merely an alternative spelling of "demon" and (2) it's primary definition is that of 'an evil spirit.' It's not until the 5th option that a reference to computing is mentioned: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/daemon https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/daemon [1] Noah Webster created his first dictionary as a resource to use alongside the King James Bible because he had observed, in his lifetime, the drift of the meanings of words to the point that what the words meant when the KJV was written were being understood differently. His goal was for Bible scholars to have a fixed point of reference to what the meaning of words should be when reading and interpreting the Bible. We can see this in the US Constitution where the common understanding of the word "regulate" in the late 1700s means to "to make regular" -- which in modern language would be rendered as un-regulated. Reading the Interstate Commerce Clause with the understanding of the words as they were used at the time gives almost an opposite understanding to what was meant at the time.

silicon2401 5y ago
> Reading the Interstate Commerce Clause with the understanding of the words as they were used at the time gives almost an opposite understanding to what was meant at the time. I think this has a typo?
- mikece 5y ago
  There's no compilre on the "reply" button and I'm a programmer... so typoes are possible. Which word(s)?
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - jagged-chisel 5y ago
    > Reading the Interstate Commerce Clause with the understanding of the words as they were used at the time gives almost an opposite understanding to what was meant at the time. Reading it with today’s meaning might make it opposite if what was meant at the time. Or reading it with the original meaning might make it opposite of what it would mean today. But reading with the older meaning shouldn’t make it the opposite if what was meant at the (older) time.
  - silicon2401 5y ago
    Nothing wrong with typos, hope I didn't come off that way. jagged-chisel got the gist of my idea. Was just curious if it was intentional or not
themodelplumber 5y ago
> (1) it's merely an alternative spelling of "demon" Combine this with the BSD Daemon illustration [0] and you've got my personal idea of where daemon came from. Which was shattered just last week when I attended a conference presentation by a jungian analyst who definitely did not use daemon in the sense of demon. That was a weird and frustrating moment. 0. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/BSD_Daemon https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/BSD_Daemon
- jerry1979 5y ago
  How did the jungian analyst use daemon?
- imglorp 5y ago
  Apocryphal encounter when Texas rednecks [sic] learned about the BSD mascot: https://unixsage.com/humor/daemonsintexas https://unixsage.com/humor/daemonsintexas
  - mistersquid 5y ago
    > Native: And what kind of football team has the devil as a mascot? > Me: Oh, it’s not a team. It’s an operating – uh, a kind of computer. Branagan could have short-circuited all of this if she had only known (remembered?) Arizona. [0] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sparky_the_Sun_Devil https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sparky_the_Sun_Devil
frosted-flakes 5y ago
"To make regular" is to make things the same/constant/even. Are you saying that in the late 1700s "to make regular" meant making things uneven?
- thaumasiotes 5y ago
  My understanding is that "regulated" as used in the founding documents was basically synonymous with "ordered" or "organized". It's the opposite of "dysfunctional" or "chaotic", but it doesn't imply any particular authority structure.
  - elliekelly 5y ago
    Here's a dictionary[1] from 1708 defining "To REGULATE" as: > to govern, direct, or guide; to frame or square; to determine or decide. There are also entries for "REGULATION" (the Act of regulating) and "REGULATOR" (a Person that regulates or directs). Here's another dictionary[2] from 1768 defining "To REGULATE" as: > To adjust by rule or method. To direct. A plain reading of the US Constitution[3] paying close attention to the use of "regulate" plainly contradicts this interpretation of the word. [1]https://books.google.com/books?id=t01gAAAAcAAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false https://books.google.com/books?id=t01gAAAAcAAJ&printsec=fron... [2]https://books.google.com/books?id=bXsCAAAAQAAJ&pg=PP9#v=onepage&q&f=false https://books.google.com/books?id=bXsCAAAAQAAJ&pg=PP9#v=onep... [3]https://constitutioncenter.org/interactive-constitution/full-text https://constitutioncenter.org/interactive-constitution/full...
    - thaumasiotes 5y ago
      Reading from your second link, Samuel Johnson's Dictionary of the English Language: > ORDER. s [ordo, Lat.] 1. Method; regular disposition. 2. Established process. 3. Proper state. 4. Regularity; settled mode. 5. Mandate; precept; command. 6. Rule; regulation. 7. Regular government. [8-12: other senses not obviously relevant here] 13. Measures; care. [14: a sense specific to architecture] (Italics are my emphasis; I've highlighted every word related to "regulated". "s" after the headword seems to indicate a noun.) > To ORDER, v. a. [from the noun/] 1. To regulate; to adjust; to manage; to conduct. 2. To manage; to procure. 3. To methodize; to depose fitly. 4. To direct, to command. [5: one other irrelevant sense] Here we see that "regulate", "adjust", "manage", and "conduct" are all synonymous. We see that the concept of "order" has special senses relating to organization and to command, as is also true in English today. The only mention of the verb "regulate", which I discussed in my first comment, clearly indicates that it is used in the sense of organizing. There is a special application of this or a related concept to government, "regular" government, noted in sense 7. "To REGULATE" is given two senses: > To REGULATE. v. a. [regula, Lat.] 1. To adjust by rule or method. 2. To direct. And REGULATION is: > REGULATION. s. [from regulate.] 1. The act of regulating. 2. Method; the effect of regulation. This is interesting in that it indicates that (in sense 2) "regulation" is a state of being, like "order", resulting from being regulated. The modern sense of the word, referring to a formal rule, is not listed in this dictionary. However, that appears to be an oversight by Johnson: here are the relevant senses of REGULAR: > REGULAR. a. [regularis, Lat.] 1. Agreeable to rule; consistent with the mode prescribed. 2. Governed by strict regulations. I don't see an interpretation of "regulations" as used here other than "formal rules". This is what was meant by "regular government" or "order" - a government itself subject to strict regulations. Sense 1 is so unclearly worded that I've included it in case it's relevant, but I believe it's just the sense in which "played" is the regular past tense of "play", while "went" is the irregular past tense of "go". This "regular" means "conforming to a rule". And: > REGULARITY. s. [regularité, Fr.] 1. Agreeableness to rule. 2. Method; certain order. What does "rule" mean? > RULE. s. [regula, Lat.] 1. Government; empire; sway; supreme command. [2. a ruler] 3. Canon; precept by which the thoughts or actions are directed. 4. Regularity; propriety of behaviour. > To RULE. v. a. [from the noun.] 1. To govern; to controll; to manage with power and authority 2. To manage. 3. To settle as by rule. One word has come up in almost everything we've looked up: > METHOD. s. [methode, Fr. μέθοδ@.] The placing of several things, or performing several operations in the most convenient order. This isn't especially clear, but there are related entries: > METHODICAL. a. [methodique, Fr. from method.] Ranged or proceeding in due or just order. > To METHODISE v. a. [from method.] To regulate; to dispose in order. This states explicitly that to regulate something is to bring order to it. The sense survives in modern English in a related word, regularize; that distinction was not drawn in the eighteenth century. I'll continue in a reply to my own comment, because I'm about to shift topics.
elliekelly 5y ago
> We can see this in the US Constitution where the common understanding of the word "regulate" in the late 1700s means to "to make regular" -- which in modern language would be rendered as un-regulated. Reading the Interstate Commerce Clause with the understanding of the words as they were used at the time gives almost an opposite understanding to what was meant at the time. I've seen this rhetoric used somewhat frequently by 2A advocates but it's completely bogus. The word has had the same common meaning in English since at least the early 1600s.[1] Even in Latin the word regula (from which "regulate" originated) was used in the context of governing, control and regulation as we know it today. As in regulae iuris which was literally, the regulation of interpreting the law.[2] I've yet to see anyone present any argument at all, let alone a reasonable one, that would even form the basis of such a theory for the "changed" meaning. It's always just stated as a fact when, in fact, it seems to be a completely fabricated talking point. [1]https://www.etymonline.com/word/regulate https://www.etymonline.com/word/regulate [2]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulæ_Juris https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulæ_Juris
- CrazyStat 5y ago
  Thank you. Backing you up with some more sources: Webster's 1828 dictionary [1], which the grandparent cited, does not have the "make regular" definition, but rather definitions consistent with modern usage: >1. To adjust by rule, method or established mode; as, to regulate weights and measures; to regulate the assize of bread; to regulate our moral conduct by the laws of God and of society; to regulate our manners by the customary forms. >2. To put in good order; as, to regulate the disordered state of a nation or its finances. >3. To subject to rules or restrictions; as, to regulate trade; to regulate diet. Samuel Johnson's 1755 dictionary [2] has much briefer definitions, but also defines regulate in an interventionist, controlling sense: >1. To adjust by rule or method. >2. To direct. There is absolutely no basis for the claim that "regulate" used to mean something like the opposite of what it now means. [1] https://webstersdictionary1828.com/Dictionary/regulate https://webstersdictionary1828.com/Dictionary/regulate [2] https://johnsonsdictionaryonline.com/views/search.php?term=regulate https://johnsonsdictionaryonline.com/views/search.php?term=r...
- andromeduck 5y ago
  Idioms are not in general the sum of their parts.
MikeSchurman 5y ago
I sometimes see a similar thing when people are arguing. They sometimes use a different current definition of the same word, and don't even realize. Sometimes I would guess it's intentional. I can't think of a good example, but I'm reminded of when climate science emails were and leaked and one of the emails had someone applying a 'hack' to the data. One side decided they were doing something underhanded. But hack I believe the use of the term was 'clever method'. Anyway, I see this often. People are arguing over the definition of words, but they think they're arguing about something else more profound.
- brimble 5y ago
  A huge part of "culture war", uh, discourse, seems to be driven by inability to agree on common terms and a complete ignorance of how labels relate to reality (so most participants don't even act like they know it's a problem). A better understanding of how slippery identity and "is" are, even for everyday things that seem very certain, would really improve communication there, I think. I'm thinking not just of the extremely obvious topic related to this (trans issues) but also things like abortion, where arguing over essentially arbitrary definitions by treating those definitions as per se important almost entirely crowds out substantial discussion.
  - kelseyfrog 5y ago
    What a great point. I've been struggling with the epistemological implications of the copula for the last few months. The existence of the copula and its use seems to imply a shared objective reality, when it's perhaps more explainatory to label the copula as a reality constructing mechanism. Either way it's use as a universal quantifier eschews nuance. Patterns like "A is B" necessarily lead to differences in reality that are easily resolved when phrased like "I percieve that A is B". Copula-induced fights are ubiquitous.
thaumasiotes 5y ago
> Noah Webster created his first dictionary as a resource to use alongside the King James Bible because he had observed, in his lifetime, the drift of the meanings of words to the point that what the words meant when the KJV was written were being understood differently. This sounds off; the KJV was written in an intentionally archaic style, which guarantees that, at the time of writing, popular understanding of some of the usage would have already diverged from the meaning as written. That was a goal of the project, which makes it a strange "problem" to address with a dictionary.
- dragonwriter 5y ago
  > This sounds off; the KJV was written in an intentionally archaic style, which guarantees that, at the time of writing, popular understanding of some of the usage would have already diverged from the meaning as written. This is frequently stated but when it gets down to brass tacks seems to be somewhat exaggerated as the source of all archaisms from the POV of later readers. From what I can tell, while some things (like second person pronoun use) where archaic at the time of writing (and egregiously bad choice of archaism because they created distinctions not made into the source material by using a distinction no longer currently in use in English, either), many others were things that were in transition at the time of writing and which didn't reflect later (and also, in some cases, earlier) common usage (thereof to avoid possessive pronouns as gendered ones relating to inanimate objects were on the way out, but “its” was still not firmly caught on).
  - thaumasiotes 5y ago
    But I didn't say every archaism in the KJV was due to an intentional style choice. I said the KJV was intentionally in an archaic style. That fact makes it strange that "this is archaic usage" would be considered a problem in the KJV, regardless of whether the particular archaism was written to be an archaism or just developed into one.
  - canjobear 5y ago
    > gregiously bad choice of archaism because they created distinctions not made into the source material by using a distinction no longer currently in use in English, either All the source languages for the Bible have a second person singular/plural distinction. Or did you mean something else?
usrbinbash 5y ago
Daemon is also simply the original latin spelling of the word. In this context its interesting to note that the original meaning of the greek daímōn and latin daemon had no intrinsic connotation of evil. It simply was a kind of "spirit", a non-corporeal entity that somehow interacted with the human plain of existence. Looked at it this way, the use of the word in *nix systems makes perfect sense: A non-corporeal, neutral entity, that interacts with the world at large, goes mostly unseen, and its interactions are (for most daemons) close to userland.

by mikece 5y ago

silicon2401 5y ago

> Reading the Interstate Commerce Clause with the understanding of the words as they were used at the time gives almost an opposite understanding to what was meant at the time. I think this has a typo?

mikece 5y ago
There's no compilre on the "reply" button and I'm a programmer... so typoes are possible. Which word(s)?
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- jagged-chisel 5y ago
  > Reading the Interstate Commerce Clause with the understanding of the words as they were used at the time gives almost an opposite understanding to what was meant at the time. Reading it with today’s meaning might make it opposite if what was meant at the time. Or reading it with the original meaning might make it opposite of what it would mean today. But reading with the older meaning shouldn’t make it the opposite if what was meant at the (older) time.
- silicon2401 5y ago
  Nothing wrong with typos, hope I didn't come off that way. jagged-chisel got the gist of my idea. Was just curious if it was intentional or not

themodelplumber 5y ago

> (1) it's merely an alternative spelling of "demon" Combine this with the BSD Daemon illustration [0] and you've got my personal idea of where daemon came from. Which was shattered just last week when I attended a conference presentation by a jungian analyst who definitely did not use daemon in the sense of demon. That was a weird and frustrating moment. 0. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/BSD_Daemon https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/BSD_Daemon

jerry1979 5y ago
How did the jungian analyst use daemon?
imglorp 5y ago
Apocryphal encounter when Texas rednecks [sic] learned about the BSD mascot: https://unixsage.com/humor/daemonsintexas https://unixsage.com/humor/daemonsintexas
- mistersquid 5y ago
  > Native: And what kind of football team has the devil as a mascot? > Me: Oh, it’s not a team. It’s an operating – uh, a kind of computer. Branagan could have short-circuited all of this if she had only known (remembered?) Arizona. [0] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sparky_the_Sun_Devil https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sparky_the_Sun_Devil

frosted-flakes 5y ago

"To make regular" is to make things the same/constant/even. Are you saying that in the late 1700s "to make regular" meant making things uneven?

thaumasiotes 5y ago
My understanding is that "regulated" as used in the founding documents was basically synonymous with "ordered" or "organized". It's the opposite of "dysfunctional" or "chaotic", but it doesn't imply any particular authority structure.
- elliekelly 5y ago
  Here's a dictionary[1] from 1708 defining "To REGULATE" as: > to govern, direct, or guide; to frame or square; to determine or decide. There are also entries for "REGULATION" (the Act of regulating) and "REGULATOR" (a Person that regulates or directs). Here's another dictionary[2] from 1768 defining "To REGULATE" as: > To adjust by rule or method. To direct. A plain reading of the US Constitution[3] paying close attention to the use of "regulate" plainly contradicts this interpretation of the word. [1]https://books.google.com/books?id=t01gAAAAcAAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false https://books.google.com/books?id=t01gAAAAcAAJ&printsec=fron... [2]https://books.google.com/books?id=bXsCAAAAQAAJ&pg=PP9#v=onepage&q&f=false https://books.google.com/books?id=bXsCAAAAQAAJ&pg=PP9#v=onep... [3]https://constitutioncenter.org/interactive-constitution/full-text https://constitutioncenter.org/interactive-constitution/full...
  - thaumasiotes 5y ago
    Reading from your second link, Samuel Johnson's Dictionary of the English Language: > ORDER. s [ordo, Lat.] 1. Method; regular disposition. 2. Established process. 3. Proper state. 4. Regularity; settled mode. 5. Mandate; precept; command. 6. Rule; regulation. 7. Regular government. [8-12: other senses not obviously relevant here] 13. Measures; care. [14: a sense specific to architecture] (Italics are my emphasis; I've highlighted every word related to "regulated". "s" after the headword seems to indicate a noun.) > To ORDER, v. a. [from the noun/] 1. To regulate; to adjust; to manage; to conduct. 2. To manage; to procure. 3. To methodize; to depose fitly. 4. To direct, to command. [5: one other irrelevant sense] Here we see that "regulate", "adjust", "manage", and "conduct" are all synonymous. We see that the concept of "order" has special senses relating to organization and to command, as is also true in English today. The only mention of the verb "regulate", which I discussed in my first comment, clearly indicates that it is used in the sense of organizing. There is a special application of this or a related concept to government, "regular" government, noted in sense 7. "To REGULATE" is given two senses: > To REGULATE. v. a. [regula, Lat.] 1. To adjust by rule or method. 2. To direct. And REGULATION is: > REGULATION. s. [from regulate.] 1. The act of regulating. 2. Method; the effect of regulation. This is interesting in that it indicates that (in sense 2) "regulation" is a state of being, like "order", resulting from being regulated. The modern sense of the word, referring to a formal rule, is not listed in this dictionary. However, that appears to be an oversight by Johnson: here are the relevant senses of REGULAR: > REGULAR. a. [regularis, Lat.] 1. Agreeable to rule; consistent with the mode prescribed. 2. Governed by strict regulations. I don't see an interpretation of "regulations" as used here other than "formal rules". This is what was meant by "regular government" or "order" - a government itself subject to strict regulations. Sense 1 is so unclearly worded that I've included it in case it's relevant, but I believe it's just the sense in which "played" is the regular past tense of "play", while "went" is the irregular past tense of "go". This "regular" means "conforming to a rule". And: > REGULARITY. s. [regularité, Fr.] 1. Agreeableness to rule. 2. Method; certain order. What does "rule" mean? > RULE. s. [regula, Lat.] 1. Government; empire; sway; supreme command. [2. a ruler] 3. Canon; precept by which the thoughts or actions are directed. 4. Regularity; propriety of behaviour. > To RULE. v. a. [from the noun.] 1. To govern; to controll; to manage with power and authority 2. To manage. 3. To settle as by rule. One word has come up in almost everything we've looked up: > METHOD. s. [methode, Fr. μέθοδ@.] The placing of several things, or performing several operations in the most convenient order. This isn't especially clear, but there are related entries: > METHODICAL. a. [methodique, Fr. from method.] Ranged or proceeding in due or just order. > To METHODISE v. a. [from method.] To regulate; to dispose in order. This states explicitly that to regulate something is to bring order to it. The sense survives in modern English in a related word, regularize; that distinction was not drawn in the eighteenth century. I'll continue in a reply to my own comment, because I'm about to shift topics.

elliekelly 5y ago

> We can see this in the US Constitution where the common understanding of the word "regulate" in the late 1700s means to "to make regular" -- which in modern language would be rendered as un-regulated. Reading the Interstate Commerce Clause with the understanding of the words as they were used at the time gives almost an opposite understanding to what was meant at the time. I've seen this rhetoric used somewhat frequently by 2A advocates but it's completely bogus. The word has had the same common meaning in English since at least the early 1600s.[1] Even in Latin the word regula (from which "regulate" originated) was used in the context of governing, control and regulation as we know it today. As in regulae iuris which was literally, the regulation of interpreting the law.[2] I've yet to see anyone present any argument at all, let alone a reasonable one, that would even form the basis of such a theory for the "changed" meaning. It's always just stated as a fact when, in fact, it seems to be a completely fabricated talking point. [1]https://www.etymonline.com/word/regulate https://www.etymonline.com/word/regulate [2]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulæ_Juris https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulæ_Juris

CrazyStat 5y ago
Thank you. Backing you up with some more sources: Webster's 1828 dictionary [1], which the grandparent cited, does not have the "make regular" definition, but rather definitions consistent with modern usage: >1. To adjust by rule, method or established mode; as, to regulate weights and measures; to regulate the assize of bread; to regulate our moral conduct by the laws of God and of society; to regulate our manners by the customary forms. >2. To put in good order; as, to regulate the disordered state of a nation or its finances. >3. To subject to rules or restrictions; as, to regulate trade; to regulate diet. Samuel Johnson's 1755 dictionary [2] has much briefer definitions, but also defines regulate in an interventionist, controlling sense: >1. To adjust by rule or method. >2. To direct. There is absolutely no basis for the claim that "regulate" used to mean something like the opposite of what it now means. [1] https://webstersdictionary1828.com/Dictionary/regulate https://webstersdictionary1828.com/Dictionary/regulate [2] https://johnsonsdictionaryonline.com/views/search.php?term=regulate https://johnsonsdictionaryonline.com/views/search.php?term=r...
andromeduck 5y ago
Idioms are not in general the sum of their parts.

MikeSchurman 5y ago

I sometimes see a similar thing when people are arguing. They sometimes use a different current definition of the same word, and don't even realize. Sometimes I would guess it's intentional. I can't think of a good example, but I'm reminded of when climate science emails were and leaked and one of the emails had someone applying a 'hack' to the data. One side decided they were doing something underhanded. But hack I believe the use of the term was 'clever method'. Anyway, I see this often. People are arguing over the definition of words, but they think they're arguing about something else more profound.

brimble 5y ago
A huge part of "culture war", uh, discourse, seems to be driven by inability to agree on common terms and a complete ignorance of how labels relate to reality (so most participants don't even act like they know it's a problem). A better understanding of how slippery identity and "is" are, even for everyday things that seem very certain, would really improve communication there, I think. I'm thinking not just of the extremely obvious topic related to this (trans issues) but also things like abortion, where arguing over essentially arbitrary definitions by treating those definitions as per se important almost entirely crowds out substantial discussion.
- kelseyfrog 5y ago
  What a great point. I've been struggling with the epistemological implications of the copula for the last few months. The existence of the copula and its use seems to imply a shared objective reality, when it's perhaps more explainatory to label the copula as a reality constructing mechanism. Either way it's use as a universal quantifier eschews nuance. Patterns like "A is B" necessarily lead to differences in reality that are easily resolved when phrased like "I percieve that A is B". Copula-induced fights are ubiquitous.

thaumasiotes 5y ago

> Noah Webster created his first dictionary as a resource to use alongside the King James Bible because he had observed, in his lifetime, the drift of the meanings of words to the point that what the words meant when the KJV was written were being understood differently. This sounds off; the KJV was written in an intentionally archaic style, which guarantees that, at the time of writing, popular understanding of some of the usage would have already diverged from the meaning as written. That was a goal of the project, which makes it a strange "problem" to address with a dictionary.

dragonwriter 5y ago
> This sounds off; the KJV was written in an intentionally archaic style, which guarantees that, at the time of writing, popular understanding of some of the usage would have already diverged from the meaning as written. This is frequently stated but when it gets down to brass tacks seems to be somewhat exaggerated as the source of all archaisms from the POV of later readers. From what I can tell, while some things (like second person pronoun use) where archaic at the time of writing (and egregiously bad choice of archaism because they created distinctions not made into the source material by using a distinction no longer currently in use in English, either), many others were things that were in transition at the time of writing and which didn't reflect later (and also, in some cases, earlier) common usage (thereof to avoid possessive pronouns as gendered ones relating to inanimate objects were on the way out, but “its” was still not firmly caught on).
- thaumasiotes 5y ago
  But I didn't say every archaism in the KJV was due to an intentional style choice. I said the KJV was intentionally in an archaic style. That fact makes it strange that "this is archaic usage" would be considered a problem in the KJV, regardless of whether the particular archaism was written to be an archaism or just developed into one.
- canjobear 5y ago
  > gregiously bad choice of archaism because they created distinctions not made into the source material by using a distinction no longer currently in use in English, either All the source languages for the Bible have a second person singular/plural distinction. Or did you mean something else?

usrbinbash 5y ago

Daemon is also simply the original latin spelling of the word. In this context its interesting to note that the original meaning of the greek daímōn and latin daemon had no intrinsic connotation of evil. It simply was a kind of "spirit", a non-corporeal entity that somehow interacted with the human plain of existence. Looked at it this way, the use of the word in *nix systems makes perfect sense: A non-corporeal, neutral entity, that interacts with the world at large, goes mostly unseen, and its interactions are (for most daemons) close to userland.