Re: Etymology of `visiting' files

[Ted Zlatanov]

On Mon, 08 Aug 2016 15:24:31 +0530 Udyant Wig <udyant@rudiments.goosenet.in> 
wrote: 

UW> What motivated the choice of the verb `visiting'?
UW> From reading some of the relevant section in the Emacs and Elisp
UW> manuals, I understand the process the verb names.  However, I wanted to
UW> find some reasoning or discussion about the choice of verb; my own
UW> expectation would have been something like `edit' or `load', but that
UW> would be looking through the lens provided by recent editing systems.

The term "visiting" does not show up in a 1978 guide to Emacs (but maybe
it was already in use):
https://web.archive.org/web/20110723033542/http://www.burlingtontelecom.net/~ashawley/gnu/emacs/doc/emacs-1978.html#Basic-File_002dHandling-Commands

It shows up in 1981, in the RMS paper on Emacs:
http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/emacs-paper.html

Either way, I think it predates modern CUA standards, which emerged in
the late 80's, and which AFAIK set down the File menu (with Quit and
Open items) consistently.

HTH
Ted