Parkinson's Law of Data
= P =
parse
parm /parm/ n.
Further-compressed form of param.
This term is an IBMism, and written use is almost unknown
outside IBM shops; spoken /parm/ is more widely distributed, but
the synonym arg is favored among hackers. Compare arg,
var.
--The Jargon File version 4.3.1, ed. ESR, autonoded by rescdsk.