French students will understand why I dragged TV's "Benson" into this one.

From:         kibo@world.std.com (James "Kibo" Parry)
Subject:      Re: Net Lingo
Newsgroups:   alt.life.internet, alt.religion.kibology, alt.folklore.computers
X-Original-Newsgroups: alt.life.internet
Organization: HappyNet Headquarters
Date:         Mon, 7 Mar 1994 08:06:20 GMT

In alt.life.internet, Derek Jokelson (Jokelson35@wilma.wharton.upenn.edu) wrote:
>
> Once I have collected enough i will post my finds. By the way, how did the
> tradition of including quotes in posts start? Thanks in advance.

Once upon a time, when the Earth was not fully cooled and the volcanoes
were still spewing naught but newbies, nobody on Usenet ever said
anything interesting.  Then, one day, someone said something
interesting, and people said Hey great maybe we should come up with some
way of telling other people what he said since it's so good it should be
said again!  And other people said Yeah!  And then the legendary Robert
Guillaume said And these new symbols to tell people what other people
said shall be called "quote marks!"  And the people said "Hooray!" with
proper punctuation for the first time.

However, years passed before people discovered how to put quotes in
posts.  Early attempts, involving baling wire, mucilage, and celluloid
failed horribly, resulting in the crippling and maiming of everyone on
BITNET.  Some say that one of these deformed, mutilated lost souls still
roams the world, twisted and disgraced, but still with the urge to post,
which he can only do by wearing the MASK OF BIFF.

Other people, of "course", have discovered "what" a "good thing" quoting
is and "endeavor" to "use" "quotes" which makes their "sentences" more
read"able", "just like this "one"."

						-- K.