Yeah, I know, it's a great subject line. :) But $_ is just SO handy! $ play voicemail1234.wav $ rm $_ $ cp myfile1 /some/path $ less $_/myfile2 At the command line, $_ expands to the last argument to the previous command. And, with tab completion, you can even see and edit it! If y'all haven't tried $_ yet, you should definitely give it a spin!