The alt.usage.english FAQ   

• "bug"="defect"

  (Word Origins)
  
  The 1947 incident often related by Grace Hopper, in which a technician solved a glitch in the Harvard Mark II computer by pulling a moth out from between the contacts of one of its relays, *did* happen. However, the log entry ("first actual case of bug being found") indicates that this is *not* the *origin* of this sense of "bug" [1]. It was used in 1899 in a reference to Thomas Edison. See the Jargon File. It may come from "bug" in the obsolete sense "frightful object", whose use in Coverdale's 1535 translation of the Bible led to its being nicknamed "the Bug Bible". (Coverdale rendered Psalm 91:5 as "Thou shalt not nede to be afrayed for eny bugges by night"; the King James Version reads "terror".) This word, which was the source of the current word "bugbear" and may be related to "bogey", comes from Middle English "bugge", which was used in the senses "scarecrow" and "demon". Possible etyma are Welsh _bwg_="ghost" and proto-Germanic *_bugja_= "swollen up, thick". The latter is also posited as the etymon of the Norwegian dialect _bugge_="important man" and English "big", from the proto-Indo-European *_beu-_="to blow up, swell", whence the English words "poach"="cook", "pocket", "poke"="bag", "pout", "Puck"="sprite", and "pucker".
  
  "Bug"="insect" (which gave rise to the senses "germ", "annoy", "enthusiast", and "listening device") is attested from 1622. It may come from Anglo-Saxon _budda_="beetle", influenced by "bug"= "frightful object".
  
  [1] a fact unknown to the producers of "Who Wants to be a Millionnaire?", who made someone a millionnaire for answering "moth".
  
  Source: [Mark Israel, 'Word Origins: "bug"="defect"', The alt.usage.english FAQ file,(line 3168), (29 Sept 1997)]
  
  
  
  

Navigation

This is a temporary page for the development of aue FAQ material and the testing of scripts.

Please do not bookmark this page.