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Re: [photran] request: install for quiche-eaters
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On Wednesday 12 December 2007 01:28, Michel DEVEL wrote:
> As someone living near Alsace (quiche) and Burgundy
> (Chardonnay) I feel particularly targeted ! ;-)
> (by the way, where do these expressions come from ?)
This is way off-topic, but here goes anyway....
I was a little surprised to find the phrase "quiche eater" in Arjan's email given he's apparently from the Netherlands, as that and "chardonnay drinkers" had some currency in Australia back in the 80s and I'd assumed it was local. But it's all there in Wikipedia, and it even has a programming connection! According to the article on Bruce Feirstein, "Real Men Don't Eat Quiche" was on the New York Times best seller list for 53 weeks.
QUOTE:
"The term quiche-eater, meaning a man who is effeminate or who lacks some putative masculine virtue, is derived from the bestselling tongue-in-cheek book on stereotypes about masculinity, Real Men Don't Eat Quiche, by Bruce Feirstein, published in 1982.
"The term survives in computer programming circles, where it means a person far removed from practice and concerned only with academic matters, unwilling to "get their hands dirty". Being humorous in nature, it is usually a fairly mild insult.
"It was popularised by the 1983 article Real Programmers Don't Use Pascal. The article specifically accuses the creator of Pascal, Niklaus Wirth, of being a "quiche eater", and is generally a tongue-in-cheek bashing of the philosophy underlying Pascal (and by extension, other high-level programming languages)."
UNQUOTE
David
