The phrase disappeared from the manuals at some point. I might have committed the offense myself: The Research Unix manuals all continue the phrase, but the Plan 9 ones say:

ED(1) ED(1)

NAME

ed - text editor

SYNOPSIS

ed [ - ] [ -o ] [ file ]

DESCRIPTION

Ed is a venerable text editor.

I likely made the "venerable" substitution. I regret that now.

Ed is the standard editor.

-rob

On Wed, Mar 10, 2021 at 10:53 AM Steve Nickolas <usotsuki@buric.co> wrote:

On Wed, 10 Mar 2021, Rob Pike wrote:

> I'm curious when people (other than me) erred and stopped saying that ed
> was the standard editor.
>
> -rob
>

I actually use that expression in somewhat unorthodox ways. ;)

Like "CDE is the standard desktop environment like ed is the standard text
editor." (I still consider both to be true even though about no one uses
either anymore.)

-uso.