Mung (computer term)

Mung is computer jargon for "to make repeated changes which individually may be reversible, yet which ultimately result in an unintentional, irreversible destruction of large portions of the original item." It was coined in 1958 in the Tech Model Railroad Club at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In 1960 the backronym "Mash Until No Good" was created to describe Mung, and a while after it was revised to "Mung Until No Good", making it one of the first recursive acronyms. It lived on as a recursive command in the editing language TECO.

Munging implies destruction—to make large-scale and irrevocable changes to a file and to destroy it. Hence in the early text-adventure game Zork, also known as Dungeon, the user could mung an object and thereby destroy it (making it impossible to finish the game if the object was an important item).

See also

• Munge – to create a strong, secure password through character substitution.

References

• This article is based in part on one in the jargon file; the jargon file is in the public domain.

Example Usage

Sharron munged the timetable.

External links

• Jargon File entry
• Mung and munge at FOLDOC
• Email address munging is considered harmful