Canard (computing)

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This article is about computer jargon. For other uses, see Canard.

In computing, canard (French for duck) refers to "a mistaken and confused belief", as in the following example: "Although Multics was much derided at the time by its critics, history has shown these complaints to be canards."

For those unfamiliar with computer jargon, this usage can be misleading because, in English, canard connotes an intention to deceive — specifically, by spreading an absurd, overstated tale: "M.P. So-and-so again brought up the tax reduction canard in spite of the fact that taxes have actually risen". In the computing example above, the author does not mean to imply that the criticisms of Multics were deliberately overstated in order to deceive; the criticisms were myths.

Following the 1981 publication of Tracy Kidder's Pulitzer Prize-winning book The Soul of a New Machine (Atlantic Monthly, Boston), the term, which had been in-house slang at Data General (the manufacturer of the supermini which was the subject of the book) spread throughout the computer world.

It should be noted that the word canard is sometimes used in French to mean 'fausse nouvelle' (literally: false news). Another use of the word is for 'journal' (newspaper).