Q:

update.packages() repeatedly asks me for EVERY package. How do I stop it?

When running update.packages() in R how do I avoid answering "do you want to update this package" a hundred times?
update.packages() asks me individually if I want to update nearly every package I have with the prompt shown as y/n/c. I end up hitting Y then Enter repeatedly for five minutes. What does the "C" mean? Does it get me around this problem? I don't dare choose that option not knowing what it means. Y is obviously Yes and N is obviously No. C? Anybody's guess?

A:

See in the help for update.packages (?update.packages):

ask: 
  logical indicating whether to ask the user to select packages
  before they are downloaded and installed, or the character string
  "graphics", which brings up a widget to allow the user to (de-)select
  from the list of packages which could be updated. (The latter value
  only works on systems with a GUI version of select.list, and is
  otherwise equivalent to ask = TRUE.)

So the behaviour you are expecting can be accomplished with the following:
update.packages(ask = FALSE)

The c in y/n/c simply means cancel and stops the update process completly.

