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

36 Welcome, New User! no sense in pretending! $ drink bottle opener bottle: cannot open opener: not found $ mkdir matter cat matter matter: cannot create