Type Bang Splat. Don't Forget the Rabbit Ears

You don't need to be smart and rich and powerful for people to think that you are. Just dress that way. The same goes for UNIX. If you talk like an expert, people will think that you are one. UNIX gurus have their own secret code for the special characters they're always typing. Because knowing how to speak correctly is a real Power Tool :-), here's a brief introduction to "hackerese":

What	Traditional Term	Enlightened Terms
`!`	Exclamation Point	Bang, Shriek, Ball-Bat
`"`	Quotation Mark	Double Quote, Rabbit Ears
`*`	Asterisk	Splat, Star
`'`	Apostrophe	Single Quote, Tick
Period	Dot, Point

If this isn't enough to disgust - errr, satisfy your curiosity, get a copy of The Hacker's Dictionary by Eric S. Raymond. It's based on the Jargon File, an online collection of hackerspeak, which is on the World Wide Web at (as of this printing) http://www.ccil.org/jargon/jargon.html. The Jargon File started as a list of terms used by early Artificial Intelligence hackers at MIT, Stanford University, and CMU. It has since grown to include many terms from the Internet and UNIX communities.

- JP