The *nix world is full of dark-but-fun terminology. Daemons run the system. New files get 666 (before the umask takes away unnecessary permissions). Parents kill their children before killing themselves. And sometimes you have to kill zombies.
One day I was at a restaurant explaining process control to one of my disciples. I was mentioning how we have to kill the children (child processes) if they become unresponsive. Or we can even set an alarm for the children to kill themselves. That the parent need to wait (wait3) and acknowledge that the child has died or else it will become a zombie.
The look of horror the woman sitting across had was unforgettable. I tried to explain it was a computer software thing but it was too late, she fled terrified, probably to call the police or something. I didn't really want to stick around too long to find out.
Almost feels like a right of passage when you inevitably google something like "kill self" (in reference to killing the current process) and get a popup telling you about suicide resources.
Zombies can't be killed for they are already dead; they can only be reaped, by waiting on them. (This is why init inherits orphans, so it may reap them when they eventually die.)
