[clug] Option, flag or switch

[Bryan Kilgallin (iiNet)]

Tradition....

{In the original Unix tradition, command-line options are single letters 
preceded by a single hyphen... The original Unix style evolved on slow 
ASR-33 teletypes that made terseness a virtue; thus the single-letter 
options. Holding down the shift key required actual effort; thus the 
preference for lower case, and the use of “-” (rather than the perhaps 
more logical “+”) to enable options.}

https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/21852/single-dashes-for-single-character-options-but-double-dashes-for-words
-- 
www.netspeed.com.au/bryan/