English Idiom in Unix: Directory Recursively

[Jonathan de Boyne Pollard]

> I think what happens is that the “recursive” has become a idiom associated with directory to such a degree that the unix people don't know what the fuck they are talking about. They just simply use the word to go with directory whever they mean the whole directory.
>
> In the emacs case: “Recursive delete of xx? (y or n) ”, what could it possibly mean by the word “recursive” there? Like, it might delete the
> directory but not delete all files in it?

It might *try* to delete the directory but not any of its contents, 
yes.   If such functionality is not offered, then putting the word in 
the user interface is redundant, and possibly not the best way to warn 
the user of potentially a massive loss of files and directories.  But 
the algorithm employed is indeed recursive.