The past week I've been busy crunching the numbers for taxes. Now that I'm out of that tunnel (but barely), I have time to wonder: did people crunch the numbers before computers? Before adding machines? And why crunch? It sounds like we're eating our arithmetical efforts.
And you know what happens when I start to wonder...
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The American Heritage Dictionary of Idioms by Christine Ammer has this to say:
crunch numbers. Perform numerous calculations or process a large amount of numerical data... This term originated with the computer age and indeed still applies mostly to the operations of computers. [second half of 1900s]
So, my original guess that this arrived with the computer age seems to be correct. Looking around a little more, it seems most other discussions of the slang phrase crunch the numbers point back to the dictionary entry above.
Oh well. I guess that's all I've got for you this week. If anyone finds anything more about this phrase, please let me know!
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| A tip o' the Slang-o-rama hat to computer science pioneer Grace Hopper, who helped make number crunching possible. By Unknown (Smithsonian Institution) - Flickr: Grace Hopper and UNIVAC, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=19763543 |
True story - I used a manual adding machine in my very first bookkeeping job. LOL.
ReplyDeleteAh! Good for you, Dani! :-D
ReplyDeleteI still have a punch card as a reminder of my old days (WAY old) of doing physics FORTRAN programming while a student at UC Berkeley....
She looks like Grace Hopper without her uniform.
ReplyDeleteIf you check out Grace Hopper images, this photo appears. Also there are other images there from when she was younger. It's the "bug" lady! :)
ReplyDeleteYes! Camille! You get the two bonus points! :-D
ReplyDelete