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