Klarinet Archive - Posting 000955.txt from 1999/09

From: Joe Fasel <jhf@-----.gov>
Subj: Re: [kl] Plural of Opus
Date: Tue, 28 Sep 1999 00:53:50 -0400

Mark Charette writes,
| Chad are the little square pieces of card or paper punched out of the old
| punch cards or paper tapes used by computers. The official singular is
| chadim, but chad is (I was going to say often, but I guess it's really
| seldom :^) used as a singular noun.

Well, I would say that "chad" is a mass noun and thus is a singular
with no plural. I think the definition from the Hacker's Dictionary
supports me. Note that it says, "this was also called", rather than,
"these were also called". As well, he refers to it as "stuff".
I call one of the little squares "a piece of chad".

chad: /chad/ n. 1. The perforated edge strips on printer paper, after
they have been separated from the printed portion. Also called
{selvage} and {perf}. 2. obs. The confetti-like paper bits punched
out of cards or paper tape; this was also called `chaff', `computer
confetti', and `keypunch droppings'.

Historical note: One correspondent believes `chad' (sense 2)
derives from the Chadless keypunch (named for its inventor), which
cut little u-shaped tabs in the card to make a hole when the tab
folded back, rather than punching out a circle/rectangle; it was
clear that if the Chadless keypunch didn't make them, then the
stuff that other keypunches made had to be `chad'.

Now, can we please get back to marching bands? ;-)

Cheers,
--Joe

Joseph H. Fasel, Ph.D. email: jhf@-----.gov
Technology Modeling and Analysis phone: +1 505 667 7158
University of California fax: +1 505 667 2960
Los Alamos National Laboratory postal: TSA-7 MS F609
Los Alamos, NM 87545

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