My recollection is that the first edition of The Hackers' Dictionary gave an authoritative history of the origins of "Murphy's Law," and that there was a specific "Murphy" to whom credit can be given.

The book is, unfortunately, unfindable at the moment pending completion of unpacking after our recent move - but I'll try to check it when we finish sorting our remaining book boxes. (The last trailer load, containing books only, was about 5,200 lb, so it may take a while, as we have only 5 bookcases in our new home and packed books from 38 cases.)

In it's original form, Murphy's Law and several early corollaries ranked right up there with "It's in Knuth" among early computer wonks. Along with much of the rest, it quite possibly came from early PARC or "Model Railroad Club" organizations.

Much of the original computer wisdom was adopted/adapted during the WWII era by people in the aircraft business, and to a lesser(?) extent among the military in general; and it can be quite difficult to separate the origins from the corruptions and extensions.

Inheritance and augmentation across international boundaries has resulted in much confusion, as with the terms "Kluge" (US) and "Kludge" (UK) which have distinctly different connotations that are frequently confused and used incorrectly. The terms are NOT INTERCHANGEABLE, and definitely do not represent "variations of the same thing."

John