   For intelligence agencies,
   it is important to 
   communicate with their
   spies to gather intelligence,” 
   says John Sipher, a former
   US intelligence officer

Is Sipher really his name. Nominative determinism strikes again.

Sifr is also a valid word both in Farsi, I think. An Ironic and cruel pun.

▲ OJFord 5 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> Sifr is also a valid word both in Farsi, I think

That is the root of 'cipher'; meaning zero/empty/nothingness.

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srean 4 hours ago | parent [-]

Indeed and used cleverly in Casino Royale by naming Le Chiffre that way.

I knew 'sifr' was an Arabic word and only today I came to know that it works in Farsi too.

The double pun/irony is that the John Sipher's surname is related to the topic of cryptography and that the etymological roots is Middle-Eastern.

	▲	OJFord 42 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		Also Hindi, Urdu, and no doubt others if we're drawing lines :) – there's an awful lot of overlap/loanwords.

▲ akssri 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

More so if you know the etymology,

https://www.etymonline.com/word/cipher

(Al Jabr, the translator of Indian Mathematical texts was a Persian IIRC)

▲

lioeters 3 hours ago | parent [-]

Al-Jabr, from where we get the word albebra, is an abbreviated name of the book (The Compendious Book on Calculation by Completion and Balancing). The translator's name was al-Khwarizmi, from where we get the word algorithm. He was of Persian origin.

▲

srean 2 hours ago | parent [-]

Why do say "translator's name" ?

Al-Khwarizmi authored the book Al-Jabr.

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lioeters 35 minutes ago | parent [-]

Oh you're right, I was confused by the rich cultural exchange of translations happening at the time, from Greek and Sanskrit texts to Arabic then later Arabic texts to Latin. Both the book and the author are fascinating subjects I enjoy learning more about.

	▲	srean a few seconds ago \| parent [-]
		Islamic golden age was an interesting time indeed. In addition to algebra, significant contribution to Optics.

▲ buildbot 8 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Random chance has a really good sense of humor!

▲ Obscurity4340 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

1/10 dentists hates nominative determinism. That dentist? Dr. Procter

▲ ErroneousBosh 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

You'd be amazed how many firefighters I know called "Burns", even leaving aside Ayrshire where lots of people are not-too-distantly related to a famous poet who, to put it mildly, put it about a bit.

▲ 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

[deleted]

▲ aaron695 8 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

[dead]