On Fri, Jul 19, 2002 at 08:18:01PM +0800, Mukhsein Johari wrote:
a python programmer and enthusiast is a "pythonista", a zope enthusiast is a "zopista"...what's a twisted enthusiast? "twista"?
As an Amature Linguist and Hacker, I couldn't resist... It's not always that easy. A Linux enthusiast is a "Penguista", which I belive is the origin of Hackish usage of the '-sta' or '-ista' suffix. Also note that "Penguista" strips the final consonat, but the other (and, I belive, later) examples don't. I've also seen "Penguinista", but I think that's just retconning to match the others (in that case it really ought to be "Linuxista"). "Twista" is fun in that it can be claimed to be derived from either: 1) A not too unusual pronouciation of "Twister". A twister, being litealy one-who-twists, is one of the people that "twist" python to produce "Twisted Python". 2) The -ista suffix, placed so that the "ist" parts overlap. This has the effect of nuking the last sylable. Both of which appear to be true to "Penguista", in wich the "sta" apperares following the orignal "i", and the final "n" is lost. (Maby losing a whole sylable makes up for the other not losing any letters). -Levi