UNIX Joke

The following Unix puns were distributed on the Usenet, without an attributed author. They work with the C shell.

% rm meese-ethics
rm: meese-ethics nonexistent

% ar m God
ar: God does not exist

% "How would you rate Dan Quayle's incompetence?
Unmatched ".

% ^How did the sex change^ operation go?
Modifier failed.

% If I had a ( for every $ the Congress spent, what would I have?
Too many ('s.

% make love
Make: Don't know how to make love. Stop.

% sleep with me
bad character

% got a light?
No match.

% man: why did you get a divorce?
man:: Too many arguments.

% ^What is saccharine?
Bad substitute.

% %blow
%blow: No such job.



















These attempts at humor work with the Bourne shell:

$ PATH=pretending! /usr/ucb/which sense
no sense in pretending!

$ drink < bottle ; opener bottle: cannot open opener: not found $ mkdir matter; cat >matter
matter: cannot create