alt Hacker News> Somehow, "Jack" is actually a nickname for "John".
That has never made one iota of sense to me. The whole "Dick" / "Richard" thing makes more sense than "Jack" / "John" to me (and it's nonsensical, too).
Replies
smallmancontrov • yesterday at 3:20 PM
It's nonsensical unless we are seeing the "John (projectname)" meme in real life. "John" gets used as a placeholder, it gets Ctrl+F replaced in the final draft but Ctrl+F misses the spot with the formal variation, somebody pretends it was intentional, and now contradicting it is a loss of face so the name sticks. The process has given birth to another accidental John.
dghf • yesterday at 3:25 PM
According to Wikipedia:
- Jehan (Old French form of "John") -> Jan
- Jan -> Jankin (diminutive)
- Jankin -> Jackin
- Jackin -> Jack
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Wow, until this moment I didn’t realize that Lloyd Bentsen was talking about John F. Kennedy when he said “senator, you’re no Jack Kennedy” to Dan Quayle! I was born in the mid 80s so it was just a quote I’d heard as a child and never thought of it much but thank you.