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Common pronunciations of Linux directories, commands, etc. (2017)

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Re: Common pronunciations of Linux directories, commands, etc. (2017)

#131

Post by dmurray »

rdiddly wrote: post #86
BossingAround wrote: post #73

I found there is this "pride in the correct pronunciation" in the opensource community. It seems to be a signal of a group membership and a creed validator. Who cares though? Why does "correct pronunciation" matter? Linux is nowadays used by many more non-native English speakers who will pronounce it very differently. This attempt at correcting others seems like gatekeeping and, to me personally, feels like a very an…

I actually can't believe anyone says "etsy." If they ever do, I'm gonna be confused momentarily. And I'm not gonna follow suit, I'm gonna say E T C. If I ever get a friend. PS I also say "libe." As if shortening the word library.

I say "libe", but "libb six tee fore", which is really too inconsistent.

Re: Common pronunciations of Linux directories, commands, etc. (2017)

#132

Post by oblio »

BossingAround wrote: post #73

I found there is this "pride in the correct pronunciation" in the opensource community. It seems to be a signal of a group membership and a creed validator. Who cares though? Why does "correct pronunciation" matter? Linux is nowadays used by many more non-native English speakers who will pronounce it very differently. This attempt at correcting others seems like gatekeeping and, to me personally, feels like a very an…

I've been using *NIXes for 15 years. I'm probably going to use them for at least 15 more. I'm never going to pronounce etc as etsy. It just sounds silly. e-t-c forever!

Re: Common pronunciations of Linux directories, commands, etc. (2017)

#133

Post by Daneel_ »

lloeki wrote: post #95
Daneel_ wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was a su-dough person until I realise that sudo stands for 'super user do' or 'su do', so I switched to soodoo - it makes a lot more sense that way. f-suck is a new one for me though. I would say F S C K to someone else, but I call it fusk in my head.

Nitpick: su is “substitute user” (sometimes switch user), it merely defaults to root. man su: su - run a command with substitute user and group ID As for fsck I moved from F S C K to progressively bind the S and C in a slide of the tongue, which ends up sounding like F-ceek once I’ve eased in the audience with F-(s)ceek(ay) (parentheses get progressively toned down as I speak faster) That or just “FS check”.

You're correct, of course. I don't know why I remember it as super user.

Re: Common pronunciations of Linux directories, commands, etc. (2017)

#134

Post by likeclockwork »

brixie wrote: post #25

I recently wondered about the best way to pronounce commands of the `[...]ctl` family, which seem to get omitted from most of these lists I come across. I personally now use "cuttle", but am curious what others say (for example, Kubernetes [1] is one notable exception, search "cube control"). [1] https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/blob/master/CHANGEL...

I've always pronounced ctl as control, personally.

You're going to end up spelling it if someone doesn't know what you're talking about anyway, might as well say the unabbreviated version so at least it has some semantic meaning.

Re: Common pronunciations of Linux directories, commands, etc. (2017)

#136

Post by lordnacho »

pacaro wrote: post #2

This is one of those surprisingly useful and obvious things that I'm surprised not to have seen before. Knowledge of (including pronunciation) jargon is a classic gatekeeper In my experience, I'm in the minority in pronouncing sudo as soodoo, the majority seem to say pseudo. OTOH I've never heard anyone say fsck as anything other than f-suck From personal experience at Microsoft the backslash was frequently pronounce…

> Knowledge of (including pronunciation) jargon is a classic gatekeeper

Indeed, the best example I can find is LateX. You can tell who's read the first pages of the docs from that.

Re: Common pronunciations of Linux directories, commands, etc. (2017)

#137

Post by erikbye »

dvirsky wrote: post #82
BossingAround wrote: post #73

I found there is this "pride in the correct pronunciation" in the opensource community. It seems to be a signal of a group membership and a creed validator. Who cares though? Why does "correct pronunciation" matter? Linux is nowadays used by many more non-native English speakers who will pronounce it very differently. This attempt at correcting others seems like gatekeeping and, to me personally, feels like a very an…

It takes some getting used to this idea, but I try to remember that when someone mispronounces an uncommon word or jargon term, it means that they're getting all their information through textual means - which probably means they don't have people close to them with the same interests or intellectual curiosity. That usually means, especially if it's a younger person, that they are smart and probably lonely.

> That usually means, especially if it's a younger person, that they are smart and probably lonely.

What a weird asssumption to make. Projecting?

Re: Common pronunciations of Linux directories, commands, etc. (2017)

#138

Post by likeclockwork »

ghayes wrote: post #72
gorgoiler wrote: post #61

- ifconfig: eye eff config (not “iff-config”) - “#!”: hash bang (not “shub-ang”) - sh: shuh like le as in le monde (not “ess ayche”) - tcl: tickle One of the hardest for me though is on a different topic to pronunciation. What name would you give to a variable that keeps track of the current working directory? What name did bash use for this variable? Answers (for me): - pwd: is “print working directory” - $PWD: is “…

For me, two of those would be `shebang` (#!) and `S H` (ess eich). It's nice to coalesce around pronunciations, but we should also accept that people will choose different dialects.

Exactly! We all have accents, we don't even pronounce English words the same way as each other.

Re: Common pronunciations of Linux directories, commands, etc. (2017)

#139

Post by Blikkentrekker »

elric wrote: post #90
Blikkentrekker wrote: post #5

> chmod: as one syllable.. rhymes with 'nod' This is easy to do for many? In my experience, Anglo-Saxons can seldom pronounce “ GNU ” in one syllable, but they can this?

> Anglo-Saxons can seldom pronounce “GNU” in one syllable That's ... weird. It's pretty similar to "knee", but with an "oo" sound. Are you saying people pronounce "ge-noo"?

The in “knee” is silent; it is pronounced /n i/, not /k n i/.

The reason this cluster is so difficult for Anglo-Saxon is exactly because English lacks it; it historically had it, which explains the many words that are written as such, for etymological reasons.

Even the actual word “gnu" is pronounced /n u/, not /g n u/, but the “GNU operating system” is typically pronounced /g @ 'n u/, in two syllables, with stress on the second.

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