Dang is going to have 65,535 karma points soon

Reminder: Dang stands for “Dan G.” (seems like a lot of people don’t realize that!)

I must admit, for a very long time I thought he was Vietnamese, as Dang is a Vietnamese name.

Interestingly, I'm finding it hard to shake that initial visual image, even though I know it's wrong. Brains are weird.

Yes, same for many years.

Same. An unconscious bias buster.

And truly, thank you. Rock solid. Steady hand.

Specially if you are a Vietnamese like me. Still see him as Đăng

You mean its not him trying to get around momma's no cursing rule? ;)

It would be my honor. But the origins of the name are (1) it's my first name plus initial; (2) it was my email address at my first job; and (3) it's what you say when you make a mistake, which I knew there would be a lot of.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7494093

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7494440

bonus credit to DonHopkins https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18513120

I see it as two ways: Dan G - his name and Dangit, what stupid thing did I say for him to tell me for about now.

I always thought it was 3)

Well I guess "FFFF" might be what you utter when you are about to curse after hammering your thumb and you just see Mum around the corner.

I had no idea either and had a similar visual image of @dang. I just had to google and find his full name and a picture to put a face to the name :)

Precisely the same for me after, what, a decade? Plus my spouse is Asian and I always subvocalize his name to a pitched language, so I’m just screwed. “Dan Gackle” sounds too… alien

Dang, because of the lowercase g I've always read it as Dang and said it with a twang in my head.

> ['dang': ] (3) it's what you say when you make a mistake

For the philologist, from around 1780, The chapter of accidents: a comedy by Sophia Lee.

> Jacob: Dang it, doan't I zeay, I'll tell thee present...

> dang it, I thought at first I ha' zwounded...

https://archive.org/details/chapteraccident00leegoog/page/n4...

...But I also immediately think of Gary Larson.

> and a picture

I thought it was the only picture not published on YC and kept private.

Wow. 18th century philology FTW!

How on earth did you find that?

> How on earth

My friend, have you noticed in these few years that I believe in particular attention to words? :)

It was pretty easy: Etymonline, which is part of my few core references as "dictionary of meaning" (as opposed to "dictionary of use"), gives the first clues at https://www.etymonline.com/search?q=dang . Then I looked for the original text and checked the details.