A sense of humour I do not understand.

[Enrique]

My operating system is open-source software (OSS). An operating system is that thing you all have in your machines, doing subordinated work for you. In the world of OSS there are thousands of programs there lying around. One of these is 'lazy', which lets you play (reproduce) an audio CD in your computer. The program strictly satisfies the criteria of the FSF (Free Software Foundation) (Free here does not mean free of charge).

When I want lazy to stop playing the CD, I press a certain key combination (double stroke). The program then responds by immediately canceling execution and printing this message on the display: "Oh my Gosh! They killed Kenny!" In the programming jargon, 'to kill' is precisely what I did. Cause a program to stop running.

Now, I have a weak suspicion, and weak because of my weak understanding of English and of the political background in the US, about who this Kenny could be. Is he/she/it the one person/thing I'm thinking of? If he/she/it is, as I am not politically biased in any direction whatsoever, it would not affect me. What I do not understand is the sense of humour this guy shows. Any suggestion?

[Sorrano]

You may check this out:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenny_McCormick

[Enrique]

Sorrano, you have made me laugh a lot. Here you have another proof of my gross ignorance of English and the great injuries I use to inflict your beautiful tongue. For I took Kenny to be some sort of diminutive or contraction of Kennedy. Or is that the case? Of course, Kennedy here is a surname and not a name, and surnames do not have those forms, only first names, I think. But perhaps, if somebody used that a his/her Christian name it could have a diminutive.

EDIT: I confess the sentence actually begins "Oh My God!". But I changed God to Gosh not to hurt susceptibilities.

[Sorrano]

There are many subtleties in English, as well as any other language. Who knows, but that Kenny was a reference to Kennedy? To master any language and its subtleties takes time and patience. Then there are cultural idiosyncrasies within the same language, but partial to regions that confound those of similar tongue.

[Enrique]

Yes, I see your point. And English is spoken over such a vast space.

Who knows, but that Kenny was a reference to Kennedy?

That's the core of my original question. The answer would depend on the feasibility of Kenny standing for Kennedy in English or at least in the US. However, after reading the article, it was undoubtedly the fiction character who was refered to who, by the way, seems to be an attractive one.