Scroll origins

Unidentified scrolls can have any one of many labels. In Hack 1.0, these labels are initially paired with the scroll types in a way that seems to be meaningful. It is often claimed that Hack 1.0 uses a fixed label for each scroll type, but in fact it does shuffle the labels.

The various labels through NetHack 3.4.3, and their meanings, are:

ANDOVA BEGARIN 

Unknown meaning. In Hack, this scroll was originally always the scroll of fire. Possibly "End Of A Beginning"

DAIYEN FOOELS 

"Dying fools". Originally scroll of enchant weapon.

DUAM XNAHT 

"Thanx Maud" spelled backwards. Originally scroll of amnesia.

ELAM EBOW 

Unknown meaning. Originally scroll of magic mapping. When looked at backwards, it sounds close to "woe be male"; this could be a reference to men not liking to ask for directions. If said aloud, it sounds like "LMBO", an initialism for "laughing my butt off".

ELBIB YLOH 

"Holy Bible" spelled backwards. Originally scroll of genocide.

FOOBIE BLETCH

Unknown meaning. Possibly Jargon 'foo', ('bar'?), 'bletch'. In Hack 1.0, this is initially a spare label.

GARVEN DEH

Unknown meaning. In Hack 1.0, this is initially a spare label.

HACKEM MUCHE 

"Hack 'em much". Originally scroll of damage weapon; the scroll of charging now occupies this slot.

JUYED AWK YACC 

Tenuous reference to Unix tools ed(1), awk(1), yacc(1). Originally scroll of destroy armor.

KERNOD WEL 

"Kenned well" in Scots. Originally scroll of identify.

KIRJE 

Finnish for "a letter" (as in a letter sent by mail). The scroll of mail was added in Hack 1.0.2, and the choice of initial label suggests that the labels are indeed meaningful.

LEP GEX VEN ZEA 

Unknown meaning. Originally scroll of create monster, and "LEP GEX" is the rather monsterous leopard gecko.

NR 9 

Possible reference to The Beatles' confusing Revolution No. 9. Originally scroll of confuse monster.

PRATYAVAYAH 

"Reverse annoyance" in Sanskrit. Originally scroll of remove curse.

PRIRUTSENIE 

"Taming" in Russian (slightly misspelled or mistranscribed but still easily identifiable by Russian players, PRIRUCHENIE would be more correct). Originally scroll of taming.

READ ME 

"Read me". Originally scroll of blank paper. Reference to Alice in Wonderland.

TEMOV 

Unknown meaning. Possibly "Vomit" backwards and misspelled. In Hack 1.0, this is initially a spare label.

THARR 

"There's gold in them tharr hills!". Originally scroll of gold detection.

VE FORBRYDERNE 

"Woe to the criminals!" in Danish. Originally scroll of punishment.

VELOX NEB 

Unknown meaning (but velox is Latin for "fast", maybe "fast any be"?). In Hack 1.0, this is initially a spare label.

VENZAR BORGAVVE 

Unknown meaning. Originally scroll of teleportation.

VERR YED HORRE 

Unknown meaning. Originally scroll of light.

XIXAXA XOXAXA XUXAXA 

Spanish (archaic spelling) for "mwahahahaha", a stereotypical evil laugh. Originally scroll of scare monster.

YUM YUM 

"Yum yum!" Originally scroll of food detection.

ZELGO MER 

Unknown meaning. Originally scroll of enchant armor.

Some variants add extra scroll names, to accommodate additional scrolls. NetHack 3.6.0 adds no new scrolls, but does add some new names that originally appeared in one or more variants:

ETAOIN SHRDLU 

sometimes used as a list of most common letters in English

LOREM IPSUM 

name of Latin-derived filler text

FNORD 

from Principia Discordia

KO BATE 

Kurd Lasswitz

ABRA KA DABRA 

traditional incantation

ASHPD SODALG 

Portal

ZLORFIK 

Zak McKracken

GNIK SISI VLE 

Zak McKracken

HAPAX LEGOMENON 

"A thing written once," that is, a word or phrase occurring once in a written corpus

EIRIS SAZUN IDISI 

Merseburg Incantations

PHOL ENDE WODAN 

Merseburg Incantations

GHOTI 

pronounced as 'fish', George Bernard Shaw

MAPIRO MAHAMA DIROMAT 

Wizardry

VAS CORP BET MANI 

Ultima

XOR OTA 

Aarne Haapakoski

STRC PRST SKRZ KRK 

Czech and Slovak tongue-twister

Not all of these are used each game.

Further reading

• objects.c
• Annotated NetHack File