Re: [FWP] Perl gender?

["Keith Calvert Ivey" <kcivey@cpcug.org>]

Peter Scott <Peter@PSDT.com> wrote:

> Do you think of Perl as male or female (and if it hasn't
> occurred to you before - as it hadn't to me - then you may
> deliver a snap judgement).  Ingenious justifications welcome. 
> I present some of my own below (and some of the most
> incendiary flame bait I've ever posted).

I've never felt the need to refer to Perl as anything other 
than "it", but here's an argument for female from pages 554-55 
of _Programming Perl_ (2nd ed.):

    This new tool wasn't originally called Perl. Larry bandied
    about a number of names with his officemates and cohorts
    (Dan Faigin, who wrote this history, and Mark Biggar, his
    brother-in-law, who also helped greatly with the initial
    design). Larry actually considered and rejected every three
    or four letter word in the dictionary. One of the earliest
    names was "Gloria", after his sweetheart (and wife). 

    He soon decided that this would cause too much domestic
    confusion. The name then became "Pearl", which mutated
    into our present-day "Perl", partly because Larry saw a
    reference to a graphics language called "pearl", but
    mostly because he's too lazy to type five letters all the
    time. And, of course, so that Perl could be used as a four
    letter word. (You'll note, however, the vestiges of the
    former spelling in the acronym's gloss: "Practical
    Extraction _And_ Report Language".) 

-- 
Keith C. Ivey <kcivey@cpcug.org>
http://cpcug.org/user/kcivey/
Washington, DC

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