etymology - What is the origin for meaning of "Wild-card"?


Please go through this excerpt from The Tales of Kasi by Madhira Subbanna Deekshitulu:



'Kasyam maranam mukti', goes the sanskrit saying, which means dying in Kasi leads to liberation. Hindus believe that if they die here, there is an automatic upgrade to heaven, no matter what the sin committed on earth. It is amazing how god provides this wild-card entry at death.



I perceived the applicable meaning of wild-card for this context is a rarest luck or facility which comes with no cost.


But what is the origin for this meaning?



Answer



Well, a "wild card" is from card games where it's a card that can be counted as any other card. You would say, starting a game of poker, "Jacks are wild". During the game you could use a Jack as a 10 if it would help your hand.


And in software, a wild card is used in something called Regular Expressions. A regular expression is a series of letters and symbols that can "match" many words. In regular expressions, the '*' is the wildcard, typically. So, the regular expression 'd*g' matches dog, dig, dag, dxg . . . and so forth.


So, I guess, in this passage, there is no special requirement on who can get into heaven. Who can get into heaven? If there was a regular expression to match who can get into heaven, it would be the "wild card" - '*' get's into heaven. Everyone, everything even.


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