In an earlier episode, Martha explained the origin of the expression to boot, meaning “in addition” or “besides.” That prompted an email from a listener wanting to know why we speak of booting a computer. Grant has the answer. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Booting a Computer”
In a recent episode, we talked about to boot, meaning in addition to. Do you remember that?
Oh, sure.
Ellen in Canton, New York, wrote in response to that to ask about another boot, as in to boot up a computer. She and her husband have been having an argument as to whether it comes from bootstrap.
Do you know to bootstrap?
Right.
If you bootstrap yourself, you kind of help yourself, more or less, right?
Yeah, you pull yourself up by your bootstraps, which I’ve never been able to figure out how to do.
Well, Ellen’s point of view was that that couldn’t possibly be the origin of to boot a computer, but it turns out that her husband is probably correct. Boot, as in to boot a computer, dates to at least as early as 1975, and it did come about as a shorthand bootstrap, which was used as early as 1953 to refer to those kinds of instructions.
And maybe this is a little too technical, but the instructions that load from software into hardware to tell the hardware to do more things with the software. It’s kind of written in the way that the software more or less loads itself, which, as you can see, is a pretty good figurative way to think about pulling yourself up by your own bootstraps, right?
Yeah, it’s nice.
So that’s what my computer is doing when I press the button and have to go get a cup of coffee.
Yeah, the strange stuff flashes across the screen.
Exactly.
It’s booting. It’s bootstrapping itself.
The earliest use that we know of, though, is even older than that, from 1946 from an engineering journal, where they talk about it in terms of just circuits rather than true computing.
Sorry, Ellen, your husband’s right on that one.
I guess somebody’s making dinner tonight.
Right.
If you’ve got a dispute about language, pronunciation, spelling, grammar, whatever, let us know. The email address is words@waywordradio.org, or you can call us at 1-877-929-9673.
