> Who created the "cat" command and did they have the
> word "catenate" or "concatenate" in their heads?

Ken Thompson wrote "cat" for the PDP-7, with "concatenate" in

mind. The cat(1) page in the v1 manual is titled, "concatenate (or

print) files". Only later did someone in Research--I don't know

who--remark on the existence of the shorter synonym. It was

deliberately adopted in v7, perhaps because it better mirrored

the command name. 

But brevity is the defensible argument for "catenate", while

familiarity boosts "concatenate". It stll takes some conscious

effort for me to use the former, However, I sense sinister

vibes in "concatenate", driven by the phrase "concatenation

of events", which often is used to explain misfortune.

Doug