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Comment by thejerz | Hacker News Reader

Growing up with Mac computers at school in the 90's, teachers referred to ⌘ as the "splat" key. I'm not sure of the etymology or origins, but I inferred it's because the symbol resembles a cartoon animation splat, as might be produced from a character running straight into glass wall and getting flattened like a fly with a swatter.

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I never heard anyone call a symbol or key 'splat' until taking database courses in college (15 years ago). Instead of saying 'asterisk' or 'star' all the time, they would read a SQL query like 'select splat from table...'

I'm pretty sure that it was another class at the same time where I picked up 'bang' for 'exclamation point'. Looking back, I'm surprised that both had eluded me for so long.

I've never heard it used like that but actually makes a lot of sense if thinking of an asterisk as the glob wildcard. Plus it sounds much better when spoken aloud in the context compared to asterisk or star

My 3 yo pointed at the key and said “drone”.

This made me deeply envious of how kids perceive the world with fresh eyes. I especially love how it's absurdly obvious once pointed out.

First thing I thought of too lol

Interesting; in the unix culture splat is often `*`. I'd never heard it used for anything else.

The unary `*` in Ruby is usually called the "splat operator".

Yes, true, and I have heard that. Python, too, now that I think about it, but what I meant (unclearly) is I've never heard "splat" used for anything but (star); regardless of what the (star) represented.

I remember hearing splat as well, in the early '90s among So-Cal BBS nerds. Would be interesting to learn where this usage began.

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