TSa Thomas.Sandlass-at-barco.com |Perl 6| wrote:
When I mentioned this before, there was big flack over mentioning the
way C++ did it. I think that must have been miscommunicated, since I
wasn't even talking about summing all the arguments when he brought
up "Manhattan dispatch".
BTW, what is a flack?
American slang, I suppose! It dates from World War II, from
/*Fl*ug*a*bwehr*k*anone/ aircraft defense cannon. Bombers flying over
Axis teritory would be "taking flak" when they were being shot at. The
"flak jacket" they wore became the modern bulletproof vests, and the
term "flak" now means flying debris and shrapnel.
I think I used "flak" to refer to the situation of being bombarded by
small bits of debris rather than the debris itself because it sounds a
lot like "raise a flap", meaning an excited state of agitation. So I
think British "flap" has become American "flack".
--John
