ugh.book

Error Messages and Error Checking, NOT! 35

Error Jokes

Do you laugh when the waiter drops a tray full of dishes? Unix weenies do.
They’re the first ones to laugh at hapless users, trying to figure out an error
message that doesn’t have anything to do with what they just typed.

People have published some of Unix’s more ludicrous errors messages as
jokes. The following Unix puns were distributed on the Usenet, without an
attributed author. They work with the C shell.

% rm meese-ethics

rm: meese-ethics nonexistent

% ar m God

ar: God does not exist

% "How would you rate Dan Quayle's incompetence?

Unmatched ".

% ^How did the sex change^ operation go?

Modifier failed.

% If I had a ( for every $ the Congress spent,

what would I have?

Too many ('s.

% make love

Make: Don't know how to make love. Stop.

% sleep with me

bad character

% got a light?

No match.

% man: why did you get a divorce?

man:: Too many arguments.

% ^What is saccharine?

Bad substitute.

% %blow

%blow: No such job.

These attempts at humor work with the Bourne shell:

$ PATH=pretending! /usr/ucb/which sense