Guest guest Posted July 19, 2002 Report Share Posted July 19, 2002 I've noticed that some people spell vegan with an asterisk the way possibly controversial words and cuss words are spelled. Could someone explain why this is done? Thanks. -- Alicia A Magical Childhood http://www.magicalchildhood.com " The best way to make children good is to make them happy. " - Oscar Wilde Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted July 22, 2002 Report Share Posted July 22, 2002 On Fri, 19 Jul 2002, Alicia Bayer wrote: > I've noticed that some people spell vegan with an asterisk the way > possibly controversial words and cuss words are spelled. Could > someone explain why this is done? Thanks. Veg*n means both vegan and vegetarian. I believe it actually comes from a computer programming practice. For instance, in some programming languages if you wanted to search for any word that started with " veg " and ended with " n " you would search for " veg*n " . The * stands for any possible combination of letters that might come after " veg " and before " n " . It's not a " bleep " , as if I were using sh*t to avoid offending people. Veg*n is usually meant to be inclusive of all sorts of vegetarians, vegan or otherwise. ---- Patricia Bullington-McGuire <patricia President, The Arlington Cooperative Organization The brilliant Cerebron, attacking the problem analytically, discovered three distinct kinds of dragon: the mythical, the chimerical, and the purely hypothetical. They were all, one might say, nonexistent, but each nonexisted in an entirely different way ... -- Stanislaw Lem, " Cyberiad " Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted July 22, 2002 Report Share Posted July 22, 2002 , Alicia Bayer <abayer@r...> wrote: > I've noticed that some people spell vegan with an asterisk the way > possibly controversial words and cuss words are spelled. Could > someone explain why this is done? Thanks. My understanding is that it is not being spelled that way because of being controversial or rude, but as a catchall for vegan *and* vegetarian (some of us are the latter but not the former 8-)). Think of a search engine that uses an asterisk as a wild card, and finds all the matches for the letters that *are* there - then veg*n matches both vegan and vegetarian 8-). Maybe only UNIX geeks like me remember that kind of wild card? 8-) Be well, Hadass in Winnipeg. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted July 22, 2002 Report Share Posted July 22, 2002 Hadass, That is my understanding too...from another UNIX geek who is dating herself. Linda --- lionsima <heviatar wrote: > , Alicia Bayer <abayer@r...> > wrote: > > I've noticed that some people spell vegan with an > asterisk the way > > possibly controversial words and cuss words are > spelled. Could > > someone explain why this is done? Thanks. > > My understanding is that it is not being spelled > that way because of > being controversial or rude, but as a catchall for > vegan *and* > vegetarian (some of us are the latter but not the > former 8-)). Think > of a search engine that uses an asterisk as a wild > card, and finds all > the matches for the letters that *are* there - then > veg*n matches both > vegan and vegetarian 8-). > > Maybe only UNIX geeks like me remember that kind of > wild card? 8-) > > Be well, Hadass in Winnipeg. > > > Health - Feel better, live better http://health. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted July 23, 2002 Report Share Posted July 23, 2002 Thanks for clarifying. It makes much more sense. -- Alicia A Magical Childhood http://www.magicalchildhood.com " The best way to make children good is to make them happy. " - Oscar Wilde Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted August 6, 2002 Report Share Posted August 6, 2002 Hmm. I suspect that while many people may use veg*n, only the computer-familiar would know what it really comes from... but we're not all UNIX geeks... some are DOS geeks too Sandra > Maybe only UNIX geeks like me remember that kind of wild card? 8-) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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