Of all the Linux commands out there (and there are many), the three most quintessential seem to be sed, awk, and grep. Maybe it[he]#039[/he]s the arcane sound of their names, or the breadth of their potential use, or just their age, but when someone[he]#039[/he]s giving an example of a “Linuxy” command, it[he]#039[/he]s usually one of those three.

Source: LXer – A practical guide to learning awk