How do you pronounce things?

[jounihat]

[Lepaca Kliffoth]

I'm curious, how do american/english ppl pronounce "RIAA"? Letter by letter is ugly.
_________________
It isn't enough to win - everyone else must lose, and you also have to rub it in their face (maybe chop off an arm too for good measure).
Animebox!

[rowbin hod]

this is fun!

gentoo = jen-too
linux = lin-ucks ("lin" as in win)
gnome = nome
gnu = G-N-U
portage = the french way
char = car (unless i'm mistaken, i though char was short for character, and the h is silent in character)
# = hash (not a pound, see below )
£ = pound sign
{} = curly brackets
[] = square brackets
() = brackets
& = ampersand
~ = tilde (i pronounce it "tild")
sql = ess queue ell
postgresql = post-grey (or gray if you're american)

[open_coder]

! - Bang
& - and
# - sharp
* - splat
gui - gooey
linux - leye nucks or lin-ucks(i've grown up with both, so i just randomly switch. No not on purpose)
gnu - G.N.U.
gnome - gnome

^^These (()) are parentheses.

--Alex
_________________
Will work for bandwidth

[tercel]

These seems to be some confusion between the Octothorpe symbol (#), and the sharp sign, which is slightly diferent. (I don't know how to produce it from a keyboard) The diference is in the orientation of the lines which make up the symbol. The Octothorpe, which I usualy call "hash" by the way, has 2 vertical lines, and 2 horizontal lines. The sharp sign has 2 vertical lines and 2 lines slanted downwards. I learned to make the distinction in high school, when I had a music theory teacher who would take points off of our compositions if we drew octothorpes in stead of sharp signs.

Keep in mind, I'm refering to the symbols are they are propperly drawn by hand. In typed text they may not appear as I have described them because of the font you are using or some style you have applied, like italics.
_________________
tercel on irc.freenode.net

[bonecrime]

SSH = ess-ess-haw
_________________
Let's see what's out there!

[d4rk74m4]

[Fat Bastard]

[gnuageux]

This has probably been covered but how do you pronounce ubuntu? Is it uhh-bun-two? or oooh-bun-two? or?
_________________
The realOTW: http://forums.realotw.org/index.php

Registered Linux user#364538

[Fat Bastard]

[Filan]

mysql= My Sequel
Gnome=nome(ie like the Travelocity roaming gnome)

[gnuageux]

I think that the mysql is actually my S-Q-L [/quote]
_________________
The realOTW: http://forums.realotw.org/index.php

Registered Linux user#364538

[eskaypey]

8======================> == penis

[WTFman]

How do you pronopunce lilo?
_________________
Occupation: Professional Slacker
Hobbies/Interests: Open Source Aficionado since 2005

[gnuageux]

Ive always said leee-lo. Not too sure on that but thats how I say it.
_________________
The realOTW: http://forums.realotw.org/index.php

Registered Linux user#364538

[rhill]

lye-low. and arr eye ay ay.
_________________
by design, by neglect
for a fact or just for effect

[aja]

LILO is short for "Linux Loader", so you would pronounce it the way you pronounce the first two syllables of those words. Of course, this basically turns into another iteration of the "how do you pronounce Linux?" debate.

[safeness]

* = splat
\ = whack
$ = money

EDIT:

I just realized that the order of those was wrong. It should be whack, money, then splat.
_________________
"The freedom of opinion and the reasonable maintenance of it is not a crime and ought not to occasion injury." --Thomas Jefferson

[quag7]

I was kind of curious about some of these pronunciations so I decide to go right to the proverbial "horse's mouth," to so speak, and searched for audio files wherein the developers or originators of various projects pronounced their respective applications.

Whether we want to consider these authoritative or not, well, I'll leave that up to the individual.

Here's a few I've found so far:

MySQL - I've heard a lot of developers and shops call this "My Sequel." As much as this annoys a lot of people, it's fairly common even among professionals. The MySQL site, of course, indicates that the intended pronunciation is "My S-Q-L." And then there is the matter of the "My" part which is apparently pronounced differently (when used by itself) by Scandinavians, as previous posters mentioned (You'll hear it in the link below in the discussion about where "My" came from right at the beginning).

However, and surprisingly, Axmark and Widenius (original developers), in a presentation commemorating the 10th anniversary of the application, pronounced it like "My-skwell" or "My-skewell" (American phonetics). It could well be that Axmark and Widenius have simply caved into the popular English pronunciation (of the My part, anyway); I don't know.

Here's the presentation if you want to have a listen:

http://www.itconversations.com/shows/detail569.html

PostgreSQL - I think "audibly" so when I can't pronounce a word I'm reading, it irritates me (personal issue). This one is bizarre to look at, but apparently, it is pronounced "Post-gress-Q-L." This one drove me nuts for awhile until I could figure it out. ("post-gray-S-Q-L?" "post-gray-sequel?", "post-greh-skewell"?) There is an audio file here, though I don't know who recorded it or if it is authoritative, though I suspect it is:

http://postgresql.rmplc.co.uk/

Gnome - Hard G here, "guh-nome," unlike the mythical creature ("nome"). At least according to Miguel de Icaza, who can be heard here, though you'll have to go forward a bit in the interview to near the end, where he talks about whether or not MONO is intended to be used primarily with Gnome.

http://www.lugradio.org/episodes/ - Go to Season 2, Episode 9

I'm sure there are probably some other recordings of de Icaza interviews around. I've always heard this pronounced with the hard G, as seems to be customary with anything related to GNU. It's understandable that people would treat the G as silent but traditionally it seems most things based on GNU pronounce the hard G. Since GNU is a recursive acronym, with G standing for no actual word, I'll take Stallman's word on it - according to Wikipedia, GNOME is an acronym for GNU Network Object Model Environment.

GNU - Stallman pronounces GNU as "guh-new" and this is expressly stated in some of the FSF's literature (Don't have a link handy) - as opposed to "New" or "G-N-U":

http://audio-video.gnu.org/audio/rms-speech-arsdigita2001.ogg

Interestingly, too, Stallman prefers "GNU/Linux" be pronounced not as "GNU Linux" but literally "GNU slash Linux" for those of you who take the time to do so (Perhaps we can add even more syllables here to make it the present day's "antidisestablishmentarianism.")

I think words and pronunciations are largely a matter of consensus, as opposed to something authoritatively written in stone. So whether or not these pronunciations can be said to be authoritative is up to you.

vi - In my past experience working with veteran (and generally mature in terms of age) AT&T Labs engineers (formerly Bell Labs engineers), the vi editor is always pronounced, at least by them, as "V-I" (vee-eye) - and not simply "vie". I tend to trust their judgement in this matter, though I'm sure opinions vary. As for vim, I assume that this is pronounced "vim" as one syllable, as in "vim and vigor." but that's just an assumption:

"The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48"
Vim Vim, n. L., accusative of vis strength.
Power; force; energy; spirit; activity; vigor. Colloq.
1913 Webster

Yet vim is supposedly "vi improved", so who the hell knows. Vee-eye-M? For now it's "vim" to me.

Gentoo - In English, Gentoo, presuming it was named after the variety of penguin (Presumably it was), is always pronounced with a soft G, like "jentoo", at least in every Antarctic documentary I've ever seen made in the USA or the UK (I've seen a lot - too many. I'm an exploration enthusiast) -

"The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48"
Gentoo Gen*too" (je^n*t=oo"), n.; pl. Gentoos
(je^n*t=ooz").
A penguin (Pygosceles t[ae]niata). Falkland Is.
Webster 1913 Suppl.

I do not know how this is pronounced in other languages, nor do I know what the etymology of "Gentoo" is - was the penguin named after some fellow named Gentoo, or is this some kind of native American word? Gentoo was also used, at some point, to mean "Hindu" - whether there's any relation here to the penguin, I don't know:

"The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48"
Gentoo Gen*too" (je^n*t=oo"), n.; pl. Gentoos
(je^n*t=ooz"). Pg. gentio gentile, heathen. See
Gentile.
A native of Hindostan; a Hindoo. Archaic
1913 Webste

portage - I have always heard the word "portage" (separate from our beloved package manager), pronounced like "porridge" with an extra "t" thrown in. Most commonly, I hear the word refer to "portage roads" - or smaller roads parallel to a highway, at least here in Arizona ("port-idge") as opposed to ("port-age"). One of the main streets in Winnipeg is Portage, pronounced like "port-idge" (at least by the people I know there, as well as in the Randy Bachman-Neil Young song "Prairie Town"), but the dictionary provides two separate pronunciations for the word, one being "port-idge" and the other being more French "por-tahzh." There are wavs here:

http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?book=Dictionary&va=portage&x=0&y=0

I have never heard this word pronounced as "port-age" with a long a, personally. But I have no idea about what was initially intended.

Linux - Here is the famous clip of Linus Torvalds that people remember from the Red Hat sound configuration utility:

http://www.paul.sladen.org/pronunciation/torvalds-says-linux.mp3

I think a lot of people imagine what this would sound like without a Scandinavian accent, so it becomes "Lin-ux" with a short I. I have heard people pronounce Linux with a long I, like the way Linus from the Peanuts comic strip is pronounced in the US ("lie-nux"), but this strikes me as horribly wrong, though that is simply a personal opinion. This reminds me of the debate about the word "sysop" - a lot of people in the early BBS scene didn't immediately know this was short for "system operator," so you heard people pronounce this as "sis-op" (in my opinion, the correct pronunciation), as well as "sie-sop." There's a great BBS documentary that just came out on DVD that mentions this.

Nevertheless, in terms of Linux, the short I is closer to Torvalds's pronunciation, even though it's not exact. Perhaps it's just as wrong. "Leenux" - closest to Linus's pronunciation in that sound file - doesn't sound quite right in the midst of the east coast American apocalypse that is my English.

ASCII - I have never heard anyone pronounce this by each individual letter, in school, university, or industry. This has always been "askee," as far back as I remember. But then again, this may be a convention only in the USA, or in the part of the USA I'm from. I don't know. Wikipedia has a little blurb here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ascii

[MrFabulous]

I see a lot of you say linux lin-ucks, I like to say lin-ex. Am I so wierd? which way is "right"?

[m0p]

I pronounce Linux with a hard I. So, like Lie-Nux. Am I wierd?

[ebrostig]

Sooo...

How do you pronounce "gkrellm"?
_________________
'Yes, Firefox is indeed greater than women. Can women block pops up for you? No. Can Firefox show you naked women? Yes.'

[m0p]

jee-kay-realm?

[jounihat]

[PennyroyalFrog]

Not knowing many people IRL who are into computers, I used to pronounce a lot of stuff wrong (Lie-nux instead of Linux for example) and probably still do to this day. Wasn't till junior year in high school (which was about 6 years ago) till somebody asked me if i used "Linux", pronounced the correct way, that i figured that out.

Some other stuff I mispronounced:
rar = "rare"
gnu = "new"
gnome = "nome"
iso = "I-S-O" (although i think both "I-S-O" or "I-so" are widely used)

It wasn't till I found the TechTV channel that i was corrected with these

I also remember reading an issue of Nintendo Power when i was in my early teens. They had a secion on internet lingo when the internet was becoming big that "URL" is usually pronounced "Earl" but I never heard anyone say it that way, just U-R-L.