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wall: interj. [WPI] 1. An indication of confusion, usually spoken with a quizzical tone:
“Wall??” 2. A request for further explication. Compare
octal forty. 3. [Unix, from ‘write all’] v. To send a message to everyone currently logged
in, esp. with the
wall(8)
utility. It is said that sense 1 came from the idiom ‘like talking to a
blank wall’. It was originally used in situations where, after you
had carefully answered a question, the questioner stared at you blankly,
clearly having understood nothing that was explained. You would then throw
out a “Hello, wall?” to elicit some sort of response from the
questioner. Later, confused questioners began voicing “Wall?”
themselves.
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