Peter Cameron (pdwc_at_sympatico.ca) wrote:
> A word I use all the time when setting things up for people who don't
> want to know anything about their computer _ and a function Macs do really
> well.
It has been in the Hacker's Dictionary (aka Jargon File) for ages:
"automagically /aw-toh-maj'i-klee/ adv.
Automatically, but in a way that, for some reason (typically because it
is too complicated, or too ugly, or perhaps even too trivial), the
speaker doesn't feel like explaining to you. See magic. "The C-INTERCAL
compiler generates C, then automagically invokes cc(1) to produce an
executable."
This term is quite old, going back at least to the mid-70s in jargon and
probably much earlier. The word 'automagic' occurred in advertising (for
a shirt-ironing gadget) as far back as the late 1940s."
- Michael
Michael J. Hussmann
E-mail: michael_at_michael-hussmann.de
WWW: http://michael-hussmann.de
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