Task #11: Interesting theory about the origin of “Fisking”
July 19, 2007
My definition of “Fisking” is already pretty complete and well-done, but a year ago I got this email from someone who has an alternate theory about the origin of the term. What do you think?:
“I’m a new LGF member and was looking through the dictionary…
I’m thinking fisking may actually have started as a verbalization among UNIX
system administrators for running the fsck command (file system check).
Fsck, often pronounced “fisk” is a comprehensive review of the UNIX file
system for any integrity errors…generally as it’s running the errors are
listed out line by line. Since it would be kind of like the item by item
debunking of idiocy, someone familiar with the UNIX command might have used
it in that error-checking sense. I’ve heard and said fsck’ing (”fisking”)
in the 80’s while working with UNIX systems both in the computer-sense and
as a slang substitute for “fixing”.
At some point, fscking morphed into a generally derogatory term in the
internet newsgroups and it looks like fisking is an alternate spelling as a
specifically derogatory term as defined in the LGF dictionary.
–David”
Intriguing! Do you think we should add this to the derivation of “Fisking” in the dictionary? If so: take the plunge!
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lawhawk | September 7, 2007 at 4:12 pm
I would argue that the definition of fisk is specific to Robert Fisk and his idiotarian nature. The definition evolved separately from the fsck-unix debugging since it was derivative of the Fisk’s actual name, and not some independent acronym or other source.
If you want to push this as a derivation, it should be nothing more than a footnote.