Tech terms I was pronouncing wrong(wonger.dev)
wonger.dev
Tech terms I was pronouncing wrong
https://wonger.dev/posts/pronunciations
140 comments
One of our friends has a great one - they (husband and wife) both say "Carry-catcher". For example: "Man, that portrait looks more like a carry-catcher!"
(caricature)
(caricature)
Huh... TIL I've been pronouncing it wrong. Either the Fresnel equations never came up while I was studying physics or my professor(s) also mispronounced it lol
The article mentions GNU, and it took me a long time until I found out that English speakers pronounce it "noo", "new" or similar. My native language routinely has four consonants in a row, sometimes more, and gn is a perfectly common consonant sequence so it never occurred to me that the GNU project could be pronounced as anything but gnu. Turns out English speakers intuitively drop the initial g, or often have to insert a pretty obvious vowel guh-noo style.
It's just how all "gn" (or "kn") words are pronounced in English – "gnaw" /no:/ "gnome" /noum/, "gneiss" /nais/, "knight" /nait/
I pronounce it Gee En You, because Guh Knew sounds absolutely ridiculous.
It's not entirely dropped, it's a glottal 'g' that manifests mostly as a slight pause instead of a sound, although you can often see the larynx movement.
I hate to helk, it’s a G-noo. https://youtu.be/j53z6RfFb7U
It's because the animal is called a gnu and a lot of us heard of the animal way before we ever heard of GNU. Sometimes, part of me thinks GNU is pronounced like that because someone wanted to be an asshole.
That's why I (despite being an English speaker) have always pronounced it "g-new," not caring what was correct. Pronouncing it like the animal seems designed to cause unnecessary confusion. Reminds me of the MST3K skit where Mike told the bots he was a big fan of Noh Japanese theater.
> Linus (Torvalds)
technically "LEE-nuhs" in those European languages while "LYE-nihs" in English, but he actually doesn't care what you say
It's hard not to forgive people to pronounce your name wrong, when they've never met you or anyone that pronounces it correctly. They've only read it on the screen and they still say your name as best they can.
It's hard not to forgive people to pronounce your name wrong, when they've never met you or anyone that pronounces it correctly. They've only read it on the screen and they still say your name as best they can.
Linus did make an audio clip back in 1994 saying ‘Hello! This is Linus Torvalds, and I pronounce Linux as “Linux”.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Linus-linux.ogg
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Linus-linux.ogg
Hey, I am English and I pronounce it lee-nus as do others I know. Though English is a European language so I'm not sure where that leaves us!
It might also be a Nordic thing. In my experience we go out of our way to allow for English pronunciations of our names.
>It might also be a Nordic thing. In my experience we go out of our way to allow for English pronunciations of our names.
Do you also (and correctly, I might add) decry the errors of the Anglosphere as Mr. Wirth did[0][1]?
[1] No, this is nothing new. Then again, perhaps someone will see it for the first time and be one of today's "lucky 10,000"[2]
[2] https://xkcd.com/1053/
Do you also (and correctly, I might add) decry the errors of the Anglosphere as Mr. Wirth did[0][1]?
Niklaus Wirth has lamented that, whereas Europeans pronounce his
name correctly (Ni-klows Virt), Americans invariably mangle it into
(Nick-les Worth). Which is to say that Europeans call him by name,
but Americans call him by value.
[1] No, this is nothing new. Then again, perhaps someone will see it for the first time and be one of today's "lucky 10,000"[2]
[2] https://xkcd.com/1053/
For the longest time I would pronounce $FOO as "string foo" in my head and occasionally out loud, because that's how my dad said it when talking about BASIC code in the 70s & 80s.
Then I heard a younger co-worker do it while we were talking about sh code and felt bad for unintentionally infecting him with a nonsense habit.
Then I heard a younger co-worker do it while we were talking about sh code and felt bad for unintentionally infecting him with a nonsense habit.
I worked with a guy who pronounced vi as "six".
I always said "vee-aye" for vi, but I just say "vim" like it looks like it should be said. If it actually stood for "VI Improved" it should be "viim" (pronounced veem?).
Fair enough. :)
> GIF
like "gif", of course
I also loved they pointed out pronouncing `regex` as "rejects" was wrong.
I also loved they pointed out pronouncing `regex` as "rejects" was wrong.
I take issue with the options of "RAY-ghex" and "RAY-jeks." In my experience you can say either "REH-ghex" or "REH-jeks."
REJ-exs
Reg like regular, from whence it comes. Regular Expression.
Vegan came from vegetarian. Signatory came from sign. When you alter spelling enough, people assume general pronunciation rules.
Since regex ultimately comes from Latin and has a g followed by an e, pronouncing it with a soft g is rather natural.
Since regex ultimately comes from Latin and has a g followed by an e, pronouncing it with a soft g is rather natural.
Yeah, thanks for not actually settling a damn thing with that description. The guy who created it says it with a soft G, so that's a reasonable authority to me. Anyone else, it's just their opinion.
Thank you! Peanut butter for the win.
I don't care what the creators say, I will die on the hill of it being gif with a hard G! :P
Giraffe-ics interchange format
Or irritate _everyone_ and pronounce it with a soft J. Zhif.
LaTeX is....controversial. I say "LAH-tek" but I've heard a lot of different pronunciations. LaTeX was the original gif fight haha
I just… can’t. It’s lay-teks to me. I have to deal with non-technical people and having every conversation about a LaTeX feature turn into a “well, actually” discussion of Ancient Greek sounds like hell for all of us.
Well, first of all LaTeX is derived from TeX. And the X isn't an x but the Greek letter X whose pronunciation seems to depend on Greek epoch and also geographic preferences. The final say would have Donald Knuth. I think he said it's like the Ch in (Happy) Chanukka ...
And again, a case where the creator could have done everyone a favor and not given it an obscure name that only an academic (and probably not many of those) would be able to pronounce correctly.
That’s one controversy that shouldn’t be. Quoth Knuth (The TeXbook, chapter 1, “The name of the game”):
> Insiders pronounce the χ of TeX as a Greek chi, not as an ‘x’, so that TeX rhymes with the word blecchhh. It’s the ‘ch’ sound in Scottish words like loch or German words like ach; it’s a Spanish ‘j’ and a Russian ‘kh’. When you say it correctly to your computer, the terminal may become slightly moist.
> Insiders pronounce the χ of TeX as a Greek chi, not as an ‘x’, so that TeX rhymes with the word blecchhh. It’s the ‘ch’ sound in Scottish words like loch or German words like ach; it’s a Spanish ‘j’ and a Russian ‘kh’. When you say it correctly to your computer, the terminal may become slightly moist.
> TeX rhymes with the word blecchhh
That's the Mad Magazine Knuth speaking: https://blog.codinghorror.com/the-enduring-art-of-computer-p...
That's the Mad Magazine Knuth speaking: https://blog.codinghorror.com/the-enduring-art-of-computer-p...
the controversy isnt `ck` vs `x`, it's LAH-tek vs LAY-tek vs lah-TEK vs lay-TEK
I would always pronounce it as in Scottish Loch, but I guess that is natural if you are German.
I had a lot of trouble with "tuple": is it "too-pul", "tyu-pul" (like pupil) or "tupple" (like supple). I've heard it pronounced all ways by now
I read it as tupple.
I go with tupple. There is precedent (see: tuppence).
two-ple, tri-ple, quadru-ple
The Primeagen has permanently ruined my pronunciation of SQL (squeal).
Also chat-jipity
For a very long time I thought "cache" was pronounced with a voiced e, "cach-ay", probably cause I thought of "cachet".
I'm Aussie, so I'm automatically wrong, but here in Australia it's typically pronounced "caysh". It's a uniquely Australian thing, saying cache this way outside of this country will get you looks.
Don't worry, you're not alone - Kiwis do the same.
I had a boss who did that many many years ago and it was like nails on a chalkboard. I'm glad you have corrected yourself. :)
I heard cash-ee and cage. Of course, it is cash like cache is king.
Cache has no cachét, if done right (other than speed of access)
Another one I learned recently: The godot engine is not go-dot, it's guh-dow.
Regex should be "reg-ex" rather than any of the listed pronunciations since it's just short for regular expression
In my experience most people that say regex a lot tend to pronounce it "rezh-eks". The softening drop from g to j to zh is a fascinating one in this context, and I think makes it easier to pronounce a lot. I'm not one to argue that it is the "right" pronunciation in general, but it is the "feels right" pronunciation to me.
ređekz?
I think it's ambiguous whether to pronounce then abbreviate or abbreviate then pronounce. Here are some example from the Haskell world:
https://h2.jaguarpaw.co.uk/posts/pronouncing-abbreviations/
https://h2.jaguarpaw.co.uk/posts/pronouncing-abbreviations/
Ok, I like this game / question, but I daresay I'm confused about some of these (or have not even fathomed some of the implied pronunciations).
`seq`, `Eq`, `prev` I pronounce like the beginnings of the underlying words, so I'd say pronounce-then-abbreviate and abbreviate-then-pronounce yield the same result.
I guess this implies people are saying "SECK" (`seq`) and "ECK" (`Eq`), rhyming `prev` with "rev", and pronouncing `id` like Freud's id? (Eek.)
In fairness, I'll confess I pronounce `enum` "E-NUM", not "E-NOOM".
`seq`, `Eq`, `prev` I pronounce like the beginnings of the underlying words, so I'd say pronounce-then-abbreviate and abbreviate-then-pronounce yield the same result.
I guess this implies people are saying "SECK" (`seq`) and "ECK" (`Eq`), rhyming `prev` with "rev", and pronouncing `id` like Freud's id? (Eek.)
In fairness, I'll confess I pronounce `enum` "E-NUM", not "E-NOOM".
> pronouncing `id` like Freud's id?
Do you pronounce it as "eyed", or as two letters, I-D?
Do you pronounce it as "eyed", or as two letters, I-D?
Regex is indeed reg-ex. Anyone who says "red-jex" is dead to me
SQL should be pronounced like sqwrl, the small rodent with a fluffy tail.
Javascript should obviously be pronounced Yavascript.
Javascript should obviously be pronounced Yavascript.
Javascript should be pronounced by it's true name, but it's not printable in this fine organ of conversation.
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I pronounced iterator and iterate with an EYE sound instead of an it sound. Still find myself doing that in speech or in my head. Personally it started because of the i variable commonly used in for loops; as a kid you don't hear iteration spoken often.
I feel like hardly anyone in Germany knows how to pronounce Azure (myself included for the longest time). There are no other common words like it, and what feels like the most obvious pronunciation is far from the correct one.
Here in Australia it's typical to say Ah-zure (Ah as in Aha) where as Americans typically say Ay-zure (Ay as in the name Jay).
There are many differences in pronunciation between English from various countries. E.g. in Australia we say Mo-bile were "bile" rhymes with "vile" whereas Americans typically pronounce it as Mo-bol.
There are lots of others.
There are many differences in pronunciation between English from various countries. E.g. in Australia we say Mo-bile were "bile" rhymes with "vile" whereas Americans typically pronounce it as Mo-bol.
There are lots of others.
>Here in Australia it's typical to say Ah-zure (Ah as in Aha) where as Americans typically say Ay-zure (Ay as in the name Jay).
There are dozens of dialects/pronunciation styles in the US. What you may have heard from some US folks isn't what you'll hear from others.
As an American who lives in the US, I have never heard anyone say 'Ay-zure', WRT to either the color or the "someone else's server' offering from Microsoft.
As for Mobile, there are multiple pronunciations in various places around the US. Anything from 'mo-b-aye-l' (as you Aussies say) to 'mob-ill' (as in mafia) to 'Moe-bill' (as in one of the Three Stooges) to 'Mo-beel'.
Then again, I live on the east coast and those west coast weirdos sure do talk funny.
Edit: Clarified "pronunciation" of Mobile (with long 'o' and 'i' and silent 'e').
There are dozens of dialects/pronunciation styles in the US. What you may have heard from some US folks isn't what you'll hear from others.
As an American who lives in the US, I have never heard anyone say 'Ay-zure', WRT to either the color or the "someone else's server' offering from Microsoft.
As for Mobile, there are multiple pronunciations in various places around the US. Anything from 'mo-b-aye-l' (as you Aussies say) to 'mob-ill' (as in mafia) to 'Moe-bill' (as in one of the Three Stooges) to 'Mo-beel'.
Then again, I live on the east coast and those west coast weirdos sure do talk funny.
Edit: Clarified "pronunciation" of Mobile (with long 'o' and 'i' and silent 'e').
It gets worse in the US. There's Mobil (the oil company - pronounced MO-bƏl), mobile (as it capable of movement - pronounced either MOE-bile or MO-bƏl) or Mobile (a city in the state of Alabama - pronounced (AFAIK) mo-BEEL).
You can mispronounce all sorts of things in the US and no one will blink an eye, but you mispronounce a town name, prepare to be dogpiled. Especially if you're in Palestine, Texas (Pal-es-teen NOT Pal-es-tine).
You can mispronounce all sorts of things in the US and no one will blink an eye, but you mispronounce a town name, prepare to be dogpiled. Especially if you're in Palestine, Texas (Pal-es-teen NOT Pal-es-tine).
> mobile (as it capable of movement - pronounced either MOE-bile or MO-bƏl) or Mobile (a city in the state of Alabama - pronounced (AFAIK) mo-BEEL).
The way I learned it (US), "mo-bile" is the adjective for something that can move, "mo-beel" is a noun for the thing that you hang over a baby's cradle.
The way I learned it (US), "mo-bile" is the adjective for something that can move, "mo-beel" is a noun for the thing that you hang over a baby's cradle.
> the thing that you hang over a baby's cradle
That's also mo-bile in my experience, unless you've been hanging snowmobiles...
That's also mo-bile in my experience, unless you've been hanging snowmobiles...
I used to mispronounce Redis too and I fully fault the "MongoDB is web scale"[0] video for that.
Glad I'm not alone heh
[0]: https://youtu.be/b2F-DItXtZs
Glad I'm not alone heh
[0]: https://youtu.be/b2F-DItXtZs
I have never heard anyone say "regex" with an /eɪ/ sound like "RAY". It's /ɛ/ like in "meh", or indeed the first syllable in "regular". (though "regex" has a "soft g" /dʒ/, not a "hard g" /g/ like in "regular").
Could it be an accent thing? Trying to learn foreign language pronunciation as a New Zealand English speaker is frustrating; I should not be pronouncing 에 as the vowel in “bed” the way I say the latter, but that’s what every description of it says.
I pronounce it as a portmanteau of regular and expression, and will continue to do so despite any corrections ;)
The 'correct' way to pronounce NumPy is 'num-pie', but my brain delights in reading it as 'lumpy' with a leading 'n'.
Same!
I also enjoy reading SciPy as "skippy".
I also enjoy reading SciPy as "skippy".
Kernel is actually pronounced Colonel btw.
Arguably it's missing "Engine X" (NGinx), "Skasee" (SCSI) and "Pixie" (PXE).
I always heard SCSI as scuzzy, never with an A sound
I personally used scuzzy. I've heard it pronounced sexy.
It seems Americans always screw up German names, like Gödel, Schrödinger.
So are Dutch names like Dijkstra, Huygens.
I don't think there are sounds like 'ö', 'ij', or 'ui' in English. note: 'uy' is the 16th century spelling of current 'ui'.
I don't think there are sounds like 'ö', 'ij', or 'ui' in English. note: 'uy' is the 16th century spelling of current 'ui'.
As far as Dijkstra and Huygens go, those are somewhat common last names where I live in Iowa, so their pronunciations have surely been Americanized a long time ago. I'd pronounce them as "deekstra"/"dikestra" and "hi-ginz," and that's how the people I know with those names pronounce them.
Took me years to realize Linux wasn't lie-nix. Some of my friends had been calling it that and it seems we were a bubble of wrong. There's also the lee-noox camp but that's just weird.
Also sea hash turned out to be sea sharp.
Also sea hash turned out to be sea sharp.
I remember encountering this file in Red Hat Linux circa 2000: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Linus-linux.ogg. It sounds much clearer nowadays, but still to my ear it's roughly halfway between lih-nucks and lee-noox.
> Also sea hash turned out to be sea sharp.
This irked me when I learned it as I'm into both tech and music, but it never once occurred to me to apply the music convention to a tech name.
This irked me when I learned it as I'm into both tech and music, but it never once occurred to me to apply the music convention to a tech name.
Took me several years to unlearn 'Lie-nix'!
Back in the BBS days I used to pronounce "warez" like "juarez", growing up in a spanish speaking community, and not knowing it was short for "softwares".
My friends and I also pronounced it that way. We are all english speakers, just not very bright ones, apparently.
And flagged. This thread is so interesting and shows how much european language diversification is involved in tech. Not sure why some people cannot stand multi culti.:-)
I love it, pypi was a surprising one for me! A "Forvo for tech terms" would be nifty (many of these overlap with non-tech terms with different pronunciation).
The worst I heard was calling PHP “pup”. Yes that’s a u.
I was at a Drupal workshop years ago and the guy running it referred to .tpl.php template files as "tipple fipps". Not as absurd as "pup", but still made my skin crawl.
I also recall in the early 2000's hearing people call .html files "hotmail files".
I also recall in the early 2000's hearing people call .html files "hotmail files".
Also PNG is pronounced ping but I've never heard anyone say anything other than spelling out the acronym
"Ecks-eff-see-ee" (Xfce), not "x-face" (sadly, got this myth debunked just now lol)
I said "etcetera" for the unix /etc path for years before someone corrected me.
What was the correction?
I still do.
This is why I prefer writing over speaking when discussing programming-related stuff.
No Whois. I said that wrong for a long time. It's WhoIs. Two words.
> Poisson (distribution)
> "pwah-SOHN", with a nasally ending, because French
Je refuse.
> "pwah-SOHN", with a nasally ending, because French
Je refuse.
> repo: "REE-poh", not "REH-poh"
This is just aus vs us English.
This is just aus vs us English.
Are there people actually out there saying "S-Q-L-ite"?
Why is this flagged?
I don't know, but it will always be "vyte".
Because vite means fast in French, which is ironic because French is a well-documented waste of time.
Missing squeel (sql) and chason (json).
love it
especially the sense of humor... like on gif
especially the sense of humor... like on gif
nginx trips people up sometimes
azure is tough for me.
where I'm from it's pronounced like "Ärger" ... which is quite apt. cause that what you get when you use it.
Huh why was this flagged???
Shouldn't hackernews take some accountability as to why they flagged it or what
HUH??
Shouldn't hackernews take some accountability as to why they flagged it or what
HUH??
ng'inx
"Euler" instead of "Oiler"
???
Not sure how an American would pronounce "oiler" but if it's "oil" as in "sunflower oil" then that's a pretty good emulation of the original German pronounciation of "Euler"...
Another anology
Euler-Room Boiler-Room
Roughly the same. (Minus the B of course)
Not sure how an American would pronounce "oiler" but if it's "oil" as in "sunflower oil" then that's a pretty good emulation of the original German pronounciation of "Euler"...
Another anology
Euler-Room Boiler-Room
Roughly the same. (Minus the B of course)
Oil as in sunflower oil, yes
and von Mises is von Meeseez which I can't manage to learn and still call it von my sis.
I take care of that one with Mises Pieces /g
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I remember that now when someone pronounces something as it’s spelled. They’ve likely been studying by actually reading something, and there’s nothing wrong with that.