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Tech terms I was pronouncing wrong

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Re: Tech terms I was pronouncing wrong

#71
post #10
post #5

Regex should be "reg-ex" rather than any of the listed pronunciations since it's just short for regular expression

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/

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".

Re: Tech terms I was pronouncing wrong

#72

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 i…

It's just how all "gn" (or "kn") words are pronounced in English – "gnaw" /no:/ "gnome" /noum/, "gneiss" /nais/, "knight" /nait/

Re: Tech terms I was pronouncing wrong

#73

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.

Re: Tech terms I was pronouncing wrong

#74
post #24

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.

Re: Tech terms I was pronouncing wrong

#76

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.

Re: Tech terms I was pronouncing wrong

#77
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.

Re: Tech terms I was pronouncing wrong

#79

> 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 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]?

   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.
[0] https://motd.ambians.com/quotes.php/name/freebsd_fortunes_5/...

[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/

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