Why does Plan 9 use "snarf" instead of "copy"?

Question

When you watch presentations about Plan 9 and its acme editor you might notice that the name for copy is snarf (I wasn't able to find any meaningful explanation unfortunately).

Why is it so?

Is there a reason for that? Was it done to create a unique name for this functionality as copy might not be the best name?

---

References:

• Wikipedia (link):

  Snarf, a term used for the "copy" operation in the Blit and Plan 9 windowing systems.

• cat-v.org (link):

  There's another menu available with a mid-click; Cut and Paste are pretty self-explanatory, and Snarf is just the Plan 9 word for Copy.

• 9fans mailing list (link):

  Using either/both acme under Plan 9 and/or Mac OS X via plan9port, is there a "file" that can be opened in acme that displays the current contents of the acme snarf buffer?

  /dev/snarf
  

  So it looks like that there is something like a snarf buffer and a file (obviously there must be a file for that buffer) called /dev/snarf.

• 9term manual page (link):

  Characters typed on the keyboard replace the selected text; if this text is not empty, it is placed in a snarf buffer common to all windows but distinct from that of sam(1).

  (...)

  Editing operations are selected from a menu on button 2. The cut operation deletes the selected text from the screen and puts it in the snarf buffer; snarf copies the selected text to the buffer without deleting it; paste replaces the selected text with the contents of the buffer; and send copies the snarf buffer to just after the output point, adding a final newline if missing. Paste will sometimes and send will always place text after the output point; the text so placed will behave exactly as described above. Therefore when pasting text containing newlines after the output point, it may be prudent to turn on hold mode first.

• Exploring Acme tutorial (link):

  'Snarf': called copy in most other editors

• dictionary.com definitions of snarf (link):

  • (informal) to eat or drink greedily

  • (contemporary) to grab something in greed, esp. without permission

  • (Unix) To fetch a file or set of files across a network. See also blast.

• Inferno Part 2: Let's Make a Cluster! (link):

  The clipboard is called by the unfortunate name “snarf buffer” in Inferno and Plan 9.

Answer 1

I stumbled upon a quite reasonable explanation today. The Jargon File (link) explains snarf like this:

snarf: /snarf/, vt.

2. [in the Unix community] To fetch a file or set of files across a network. See also blast. This term was mainstream in the late 1960s, meaning ‘to eat piggishly’. It may still have this connotation in context. “He's in the snarfing phase of hacking — FTPing megs of stuff a day.”

It seems like the designers of Plan 9 perceived copy not as an atomic action. Copying is in fact:

• obtaining the content you want to copy (snarfing)
• inserting the content where you want it to be (pasting)

(Cutting on the other hand is snarfing and deleting the original content at the same time.)

---

Rob Pike's answer

I've asked this question on the 9fans mailing list. You can see the thread here (link)¹.

Here's the answer¹ I've received from Rob Pike:

The operation is not to copy but to snarf. It's called snarf because snarf is what it does. There is no design document.

---

^{1: As Stéphane Chazelas pointed out in a comment, you can use http://marc.info/?t=147367568900005&r=1&w=2 to avoid having to create an account to see the list archives.}