The Coq mailing list

[Clément Pit-Claudel <cpitclaudel AT gmail.com>]

On 4/5/21 2:43 PM, Andrew Appel wrote:
> The English word "bit" was coined by Claude Shannon as an abbreviation of 
> "binary digit".
> The French word "bit" is a cognate of the English word.
> The Frech word "mot" is a literal translation of the English word "word",
> so you can translate "32-bit word" as "mot de 32 bits".
> 
> The word "byte" was coined by Werner Buchholz of IBM in New York.
> But French computer science terminology uses the word "octet" instead of 
> just using the English word "byte".
> To see why, you can use your favorite translation app to translate "bite" 
> from English to French.

This isn't quite right. "Byte" isn't offensive in French, and is used 
interchangeably with "octet".  It's "bit" that sounds offensive, but the 
alternative "chiffre binaire" is almost never used.

So, "octet" wasn't coined to avoid an unpleasant connotation, and "bit" does 
have an unpleasant connotation yet is commonly used.

> I believe that was (in part) the joke of naming Coq as it is:  it's a 
> perfectly acceptable word in French, it's a symbol of France itself, as 
> well as a play on the name of an inventor (Coquand) and the abbreviation of 
> the Calculus of Constructions (coc); and as a special bonus, it makes 
> English speakers just as uncomfortable as the use of the word "byte" would 
> make a French speaker.

Almost: the final sentence should say 'just as uncomfortable as the pervasive 
use of the word "bit" in French.'