mung

mung /muhng/ vt.  [in 1960 at MIT, `Mash Until No Good';
   sometime after that the derivation from the {{recursive acronym}}
   `Mung Until No Good' became standard; but see {munge}] 1. To
   make changes to a file, esp. large-scale and irrevocable changes.
   See {BLT}.  2. To destroy, usually accidentally, occasionally
   maliciously.  The system only mungs things maliciously; this is a
   consequence of {Finagle's Law}.  See {scribble}, {mangle},
   {trash}, {nuke}.  Reports from {Usenet} suggest that the
   pronunciation /muhnj/ is now usual in speech, but the spelling
   `mung' is still common in program comments (compare the
   widespread confusion over the proper spelling of {kluge}).
   3. The kind of beans of which the sprouts are used in Chinese food.
   (That's their real name!  Mung beans!  Really!)

   Like many early hacker terms, this one seems to have originated at
   {TMRC}; it was already in use there in 1958.  Peter Samson
   (compiler of the original TMRC lexicon) thinks it may originally
   have been onomatopoeic for the sound of a relay spring (contact)
   being twanged.  However, it is known that during the World Wars,
   `mung' was army slang for the ersatz creamed chipped beef better
   known as `SOS', and it seems quite likely that the word in fact
   goes back to Scots-dialect {munge}.