pling

(This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium.)

• IPA^(key): /plɪŋ/
• Rhymes: -ɪŋ

pling (plural plings)

1. (computing, dated) The symbol ! (an exclamation mark).
   • 1989, John Littler; John Maher, Computers in the laboratory: a student guide to microprocessor interfacing:

     This illustrates the order in which bytes are poked into memory with the pling operator.

   • 1994, "C.P. Brown", HAhAhA (on Internet newsgroup comp.sys.acorn.advocacy)

     IMO, prefixing a directory name with a pling so that a program within it is run when you double click on it is a rather untidy way to do things.

   • 1994, Stewart Palmer; Mark Moir, Developing CD-ROM products for Acorn machines:

     Make sure that you consider ISO 9660 restrictions on the use of characters in disc, directory and file names. Only upper case alpha and numeric characters plus the underscore (_) and pling (!) can be used as legal characters.

   • 1996, "Tim Wiser", Pling thing revisited (on newsgroup comp.sys.acorn.apps)

     Acorn Computing used to be big offenders when it came to referring to applications by their pling-inclusive names. They loved it. Unfortunately it made their articles sound silly (for want of a better adjective).

• Associated with Acorn Computers, e.g. used in the 1980 manual for the Acorn Atom, Atomic Theory and Practice by David Johnson-Davies.

• bang

pling n (plural plings)

1. sports field
2. square