mung

	This is the JargonFile ^(V4.00) entry for mung - Next: munge, Prev: mundane
:mung: /muhng/ /vt./ [in 1960 at MIT, Mash Until No Good; sometime after that the derivation from the [[recursive acronym]] Mung Until No Good became standard; but see munge] 1. To make changes to a file, esp. large-scale and irrevocable changes. See BLT. 2. To destroy, usually accidentally, occasionally maliciously. The system only mungs things maliciously; this is a consequence of [[Finagles Law]]. See scribble, mangle, trash, nuke. Reports from Usenet suggest that the pronunciation /muhnj/ is now usual in speech, but the spelling mung is still common in program comments (compare the widespread confusion over the proper spelling of kluge). 3. The kind of beans the sprouts of which are used in Chinese food. (Thats their real name! Mung beans! Really!) Like many early hacker terms, this one seems to have originated at TMRC; it was already in use there in 1958. Peter Samson (compiler of the original TMRC lexicon) thinks it may originally have been onomatopoeic for the sound of a relay spring (contact) being twanged. However, it is known that during the World Wars, mung was U.S. army slang for the ersatz creamed chipped beef better known as SOS, and it seems quite likely that the word in fact goes back to Scots-dialect munge.
* (text is auto-included via JargonExtension by mutante using jargon with VERSION 4.0.0, 24 JUL 1996* - JargonFile by Eric S. Raymond is in the public domain)*