"Alan W. Craft" wrote in message
...
On 21 Sep 2003 19:46:58 -0700, (Thad Floryan)
....reflected:

The original "Net" news was called, surprisingly, "netnews" before the
change
to Usenet.

How is it surprising, as it's most descriptive, and to the point of
my further
asking, why the change to "Usenet" in the first place?

I am not sure there really was a change. Usenet is the UNIX network that
carried the newsgroups until it was absorbed into the Internet. (Maybe
ARPAnet for an intervening period -- I'm not sure.)

The term "netnews" fell out of use for obscure reasons.