Lisp was MIT’s own computer language.  While doing research for a presentation about the history of Boston ice cream stores I discovered the following nugget in the Wikipedia article on Steve’s Ice Cream.  During the years I worked at Steve’s no one used the term “smoosh-in” which I think sounds awful.  We always used the term “mix-in.”

“The popularity of the Heath Bar smoosh-in, created by Steve’s and utilized by later chains, prompted the Heath company to expand its operation to include a commercial foods division.^[4] Later chains took concept of the smoosh-in and applied it to their operations, creating a whole new industry around it. Because Herrell trademarked the term smoosh-in, most chains refer to the term as mix-in in industry terminology.^[6]

Additionally, the name inspired computer programmers to name a function found in object-oriented programming language a Mixin.^[7] Inspired by the concept of using a basic flavor of ice cream and blending in a combination of extra items, the programmers applied the term to small sets of pre-written computer code that was mixed into the main core of a larger program.^[8] Mixins first appeared in the MIT Lisp Machine object-oriented Flavors system, which was an approach to object-orientation used in Lisp Machine Lisp.”

1. Stickermeister Steven on May 27th, 2011 at 3:11 am

   Neat.

   Are you taking requests? I would love to read an account of your own refusal to cater to the “mix-in” sensibility and the role this had in early Toscanini’s history.

   If you feel like telling some version of that story today…