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I am just curious why in the C programming language the function to read formatted input was called "scanf" as opposed to "readf". I assume it is derived from an earlier language, so in that case why was it named that way in the earlier language? (Recurse.)
Also, why "printf" rather than "writef"? In languages other than C, why "print" or "write" rather than "display"?
Printf is "print - formatted". It has the same root as "print" in "printer", which is shorthand for "teleprinter", a synonym for "teletypewriter", and comes likely from the time when you used real TTYs for interacting with computers instead of monitors and keyboards.
Scanf is "scan - formatted", and matches the "print" paradigm, compare to the use of "scanner" in the context of OCR. Also, one could assume that read/write have been a pair of system calls for a long time, and in the same way as printf is distinct from write (2), there has been desire to separate scanf from read(2).
"Read" actually requires comprehension of what you are looking at. As opposed to "Scan", which basically means to capture the input, then I will figure out what to do with it later.
This is an answer that is just "intuition". The name readf() assumes you already have something to read. But scanf() actually has two things to do: Wait for the user input (in other words, keep scanning the input buffer till it finds something) and then read it. Note that I'm not judging how the operating system actually implements that, I'm just describing the conceptual operation.
I know you'll tell me fscanf() and sscanf() do not match this idea, but I assume they are extensions to scanf() and thus it was just "normal" to give them the same name.
By the way, why is your name "Doug" and not "ABCD"?? :-P
