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Comment by jaapz | Hacker News Reader

Kind of similar to the story about the origins of the word "bug" in software

If this would have caught on we might have called bugs mice

Too many people remember the “bug” story as “Grace Hopper invented the term ‘bug’” when the real takeaway is “Grace Hopper was very funny.”

And in colloquial speak, a grasshopper is, of course, a bug.

Isn't that story more myth than reality?

The history section of the Wikipedia entry for "bug" [1] suggests it predates computers by decades.

1- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bug_(engineering)

It's also more moth than reality.

Moths are, technically [0], not bugs.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hemiptera

I don't think there's a precise scientific definition of "bug"

Yes and no. There's a group called "true bugs" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hemiptera as linked above). "Bug" in the common sense doesn't have a precise definition (small arthropod that may or may not be a pest to humans is about as precise as I feel I can get), but there _is_ a scientific definition of "true bug".

So moths are not bugs because they're "true bugs"? How does it make sense?

Apparently they're not "true bugs", the comment you replied to isn't claiming that they are.

This is the kind of response I appreciate. Thank you!

The actual story is not myth. It just isn't the origin of the term.

Hopper's note didn't suggest the word was new, but was funny exactly because it was not.

Right, good correction. It's the origin part that's the myth.

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