A 72-year-old Australian called Stelarc, the BBC reported, has an ear growing from one arm. He hopes to connect a microphone to it so that people can hear on the internet the sounds it picks up. Mr Stelarc is a body-hacker. They tend to have names like Stelarc.
Hacker itself was first used as a surname, but not for a body-hacker or a computer-hacker. Adam le Hacker’s name was recorded in 1224. He was probably either a hedger or a maker of hacks; tools for chopping.
I had assumed without thinking about it that life hacks and computer hackers shared a verbal origin with journalistic hacks like myself. It is not so.
Oliver Goldsmith wrote an epitaph: ‘Here lies poor Ned Purdon, from misery freed, / Who long was a bookseller’s hack; / He led such a damnable life in this world — / I don’t think he’ll wish to come back.’
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