emacs terminology

emacs terminology

[Luca Ferrari]

Hi all,
this could sound like trolling, but I'm really curious to understand
(if possibile) how did Emacs come up with terms like "kill" and
"yank".
Is there any resource that explains it? I suspect that was due in
order to "memorize" key bindings, e.g., C-p was already used for
"previous" so instead of "paste" they choose "yank", but I'm just
guessing.

Thanks,
Luca

Re: emacs terminology

[Y. E.]

Hi Luca,

> this could sound like trolling

To me personally this sounds as a fine question.

> I'm really curious to understand
> (if possibile) how did Emacs come up with terms like "kill" and
> "yank".
> Is there any resource that explains it?

The only source I found investigating this question is this
SE thread:

https://emacs.stackexchange.com/questions/17056/what-is-the-origin-of-the-term-yank

Re: emacs terminology

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: "Y. E." <yet@ego.team>
> Cc: help-gnu-emacs <help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org>
> Date: Thu, 09 Sep 2021 21:20:32 +0300
> 
> > I'm really curious to understand
> > (if possibile) how did Emacs come up with terms like "kill" and
> > "yank".
> > Is there any resource that explains it?
> 
> The only source I found investigating this question is this
> SE thread:
> 
> https://emacs.stackexchange.com/questions/17056/what-is-the-origin-of-the-term-yank

I don't know how it came to be used, but you can find more info here:

  https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/209660/why-is-the-vi-editors-copy-command-called-yank

It says this comes from TECO, and was already in use in the early
1960s.  And Emacs is not the only editor using this terminology: vi
does as well, its command to yank a line is yy or Y.  "Paste" came
later, in 1970s.

Re: emacs terminology

[Leo Butler]

"Y. E." <yet@ego.team> writes:

> Hi Luca,
>
>> this could sound like trolling
>
> To me personally this sounds as a fine question.
>
>> I'm really curious to understand
>> (if possibile) how did Emacs come up with terms like "kill" and
>> "yank".
>> Is there any resource that explains it?
>
> The only source I found investigating this question is this
> SE thread:
>
> https://emacs.stackexchange.com/questions/17056/what-is-the-origin-of-the-term-yank

See the first 3 paragraphs of section 12.1 of the Emacs manual:

#+begin_quote
File: emacs.info,  Node: Deletion and Killing,  Next: Yanking,  Up: Killing

12.1 Deletion and Killing
=========================

Most commands which erase text from the buffer save it in the kill ring
(*note Kill Ring::).  These are known as “kill” commands, and their
names normally contain the word ‘kill’ (e.g., ‘kill-line’).  The kill
ring stores several recent kills, not just the last one, so killing is a
very safe operation: you don’t have to worry much about losing text that
you previously killed.  The kill ring is shared by all buffers, so text
that is killed in one buffer can be yanked into another buffer.

   When you use ‘C-/’ (‘undo’) to undo a kill command (*note Undo::),
that brings the killed text back into the buffer, but does not remove it
from the kill ring.

   On graphical displays, killing text also copies it to the system
clipboard.  *Note Cut and Paste::.

   Commands that erase text but do not save it in the kill ring are
known as “delete” commands; their names usually contain the word
‘delete’.  These include ‘C-d’ (‘delete-char’) and <DEL>
(‘delete-backward-char’), which delete only one character at a time, and
those commands that delete only spaces or newlines.  Commands that can
erase significant amounts of nontrivial data generally do a kill
operation instead.
#+end_quote

Leo

Re: emacs terminology

[Y. E.]

> > https://emacs.stackexchange.com/questions/17056/what-is-the-origin-of-the-term-yank
>
> I don't know how it came to be used, but you can find more info here:
>
>   https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/209660/why-is-the-vi-editors-copy-command-called-yank
>
> It says this comes from TECO, and was already in use in the early
> 1960s.  And Emacs is not the only editor using this terminology: vi
> does as well, its command to yank a line is yy or Y.  "Paste" came
> later, in 1970s.

Yes, emacs.SE question also links to the unix.SE in the first comment.

Anyway, the visibility of that answer-in-the-comment at unix.SE was
very questionable, so I added a more Emacs-oriented _community wiki_
answer to emacs.SE (based on the already mentioned comment):

https://emacs.stackexchange.com/a/68454/28451

Fixes and improvement are, by definition, welcome from everyone.

Re: emacs terminology

[Emanuel Berg via Users list for the GNU Emacs text editor]

Y. E. wrote:

>>> https://emacs.stackexchange.com/questions/17056/what-is-the-origin-of-the-term-yank
>>
>> I don't know how it came to be used, but you can find more
>> info here:
>>
>>   https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/209660/why-is-the-vi-editors-copy-command-called-yank
>>
>> It says this comes from TECO, and was already in use in the
>> early 1960s. And Emacs is not the only editor using this
>> terminology: vi does as well, its command to yank a line is
>> yy or Y. "Paste" came later, in 1970s.
>
> Yes, emacs.SE question also links to the unix.SE in the
> first comment.
>
> Anyway, the visibility of that answer-in-the-comment at
> unix.SE was very questionable, so I added a more
> Emacs-oriented _community wiki_ answer to emacs.SE (based on
> the already mentioned comment):
>
> https://emacs.stackexchange.com/a/68454/28451
>
> Fixes and improvement are, by definition, welcome
> from everyone.

Maybe add a line saying the origin for the words kill and yank
in particular maybe is mnemonic (the y key, yank; the
k key, kill) like Luca theorized ...

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