>>>>recursion (or in English is it recur?)
>>>
>>>The noun is "recursion." The adjective is "recursive." The verb is "recur."
>>>
>>>Tamar
>>
>>Tamar,
>>
>>As you know, the verb "recur" carries no implication of recursion, although its meaning, "to happen again", obviously is related as the root of recursion. Unfortunately, there is no officially accepted verb form of recursion, so the word "recurse" has come into popular use to fill this gap. I know as a purist you don't like that word, but this clarification is for the benefit of non-native English speakers.
>>
>
>Yes, I know many programmers say "recurse," but these are the same folks who say that you can "persist a variable," which is also grammatically wrong.
>
>FWIW, when I search dictionary.com for "recurse," the only dictionary that turns it up is the Free On-Line Dictionary of Computing. All the standard dictionaries do not include the word, so I conclude that it's programmer's jargon and not good English.
>
>Tamar

I sympathize with your feelings about it, Tamar. For me the words "synergy" and "proactive" have not been easy to swallow, and you'll never catch me "persisting a variable", yet I am unapologetic about recursing to my heart's content. At least there is no confusion about the meaning of "recurse", and I would not favor substituting "recur" on the basis of grammatical correctness.

Formal acceptance by linguistic "authorities" is an acknowledgement, after the fact, of accepted usage. Language happens. Not every new term deserves to be recognized and accepted simply because it is popular, but in this particular case I consider it reasonable and justified. If it's any consolation, Google shows more than 800 thousand hits for "recurse".