I think the word is 'insane' *g*. It didn't start out that way, it just ... grew. A definite case of feaping creaturitis.

(Messrs. Aho, Weinberger, and Kernighan commented in the AWK book about their puzzlement; they intended the language to be used for small scripts, the 10 lines or so you mention, and found people writing thousands of lines in it...)