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Comment by elromulous | Hacker News Reader

From the docs: Blech is a German word and roughly translates as bare metal. As its name suggests, a Blech program can run on pretty much anything:

* directly on “the Blech” in an embedded device,

* on top of a realtime OS,

* as a safety-critical component integrated via some middleware,

* in combination with a simulation model.

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Blech also means sheet metal. So a metal (beverage) can is a Blechdose (a Dose is a can). Colloquially one could also say "Red kein Blech" which literally translates to "Say no sheet metal" and means "Stop saying nonsense" or something among those things.

If a sound is blechern we are speaking of a tinny sound. It can also be used as a verb: blechen stands for paying, typically used for when someone has to pay too much or for bad reasons (e.g. when they gave you a ticket for parking in the wrong spot).

This sent me down a rabbit hole, and I'm back to share what I found:

The English word which shares ancestry with Blech is 'blink'. You're welcome.

Edit: Der Blechenmachine ist nicht für gefingerpoken!

Haha thanks, a very interesting connection.

> Blech also means sheet metal

I believe the English word “blacksmith” preserves this shared etymology.

The "black-" in blacksmith, just means black [1], most likely in reference to the iron they worked. As far as I can tell, "Blech" doesn't have a cognate in English. If it did, it would probably by "blek" or "blik".

1: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/blacksmith#English

Blech has the same etymological roots as English blink, roots whose meaning is “to shine”. Blick (both English and German) is also related, as are blank and bleak, and, indeed, also black (which comes more from a “to burn/blaze” variant of “to shine”).

Also Blikkenslager, someone who works with sheet metal (Norwegian, Bokmål).

Now it makes sense. “blech” in English is an expression of disgust.

Pronunciation, according to the dictionary, is [blɛç].

I grew up reading Mad magazine, and this is the meaning of the word to me. Along with "poit" indicating a wardrobe malfunction.

I love the name. What's in a name? In my experience, names that come off like a brag are unlucky. Names that are self-deprecating are lucky.

It's my dream to make something awesome with a particularly off-putting name. People who judge a book by its cover will miss out. People who don't care about names will reap the benefits.

In other words, your customers don't care if you utilize a tool called "Turd" or whatever.

I assumed it was in honour of Bletchley Park.

yeah same here

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