Re: [public-webappsec] <none>

Thanks for the background Dan,

The "*for the nonce*", where it's a word (not abbreviation), is a much
better explanation for how it exists.

Or in other variants - "for the once", "for one occasion", "for now", "for
the moment".

And I believe you're right about the slang version being from the 1970's,
it's just unfortunate that the non-techies I know are more familiar with
that version (like you, I wasn't aware of it either). It was then made
worse because none of us could see how abbreviating "number used once"
really worked as an explanation.

Craig




On Thu, 25 Jul 2019 at 01:44, Daniel Veditz <dveditz@mozilla.com> wrote:

> On Wed, Jul 24, 2019 at 3:55 AM Craig Francis <craig.francis@gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> But whenever I mention the word "nonce" [...] sometimes they wonder why
>> paedophiles are relevant
>>
>
> Ugh -- been in the spec for years and this is the first time I've heard of
> this unfortunate slang meaning. I'll take comfort in the fact that crypto
> use of "nonce" is almost certainly inspired by the phrase "for the nonce"
> for which the OED has citations going back to the 1200s. I don't buy
> "Number used ONCE" as the real origin, not for something that's such an old
> legit word that just happens to have essentially the same meaning. The
> slang meaning seems to have come from the 1970s. A couple of places are
> trying to sell it as a prison guard acronym for paedophiles likely to get
> beaten up ("Not On Normal Communal Excercise") but that sounds more like a
> backcronym to me; a shortened form of "Nancy boy" seems more likely.
>
> -Dan Veditz
>
>