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Comment by curiousGambler | Hacker News Reader

Why anyone would name anything "clippy" again is beyond me.

One of clippy's authors and maintainers here (though I didn't choose the name); why would you name such a program "lint"?

For me clippy evokes the image of a well-meaning, if at times clumsy helper that tries to nudge you in the right direction. I find that very fitting for a tool that...well...tries to nudge you in the right direction of writing good, fast, idiomatic code.

Clippy is reborn from its ashes into a cultural icon; it made you react, therefore it's a fun name to choose. Kakoune uses a clippy ASCII art for its immediate help, it's nice.

> Kakoune uses a clippy ASCII art for its immediate help, it's nice.

Had to look this up - very cute!

https://github.com/mawww/kakoune#screenshots

https://raw.githubusercontent.com/mawww/kakoune/master/doc/s...

Their choice of executable name is slightly unfortunate in Dutch, where 'kak' basically means 'shit'.

Eastern Slavic languages like Russian also give a similar vibe to this word ('shitter').

Какаю would the translated to "I poo" (hence Кака would be "poo"). Срач would be the stronger word in Russian [1].

[1] https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%D1%81%D1%80%D0%B0%D1%87

I think “kak” would be better translated as “poo”. Parents will routinely talk to their kids about “kak”, similar to the way US parents will use the word “poo”. The word “shit” generally has a much stronger meaning (and is therefore often obscured, as “s..t” or something similar.

I think "kak" still would be translated better as "shit", you wouldn't curse with "POO!". But in Dutch you can curse with "KAK!", just as 'SH*T!' in English.

What's wrong with this name?

Probably trademarks and copyrights.

Copyright doesn't apply to names, and the only US trademark for "clippy" is for medical equipment (and thus doesn't apply here) [1]. There doesn't seem to be any EU trademark for "clippy"

1: http://tmsearch.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=toc&state=4805%3At...

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