pronunciation question.
Wolfgang Hukriede
Don't know, but I do:
flet EFF-LET
defun DAY-FUN
princ PRINK
nconc EN-KONK
progn PROGN
eql AY-KU-ELL (with french U)
hth, W.
Kent M Pitman
> > How does one pronounce these?
>
> Don't know, but I do:
>
> flet EFF-LET
A substantial number of old-timers say "flet" like "fled", but with
a trailing "t" like "let". One syllable.
There is general agreement that "flay" is not a good pronunciation,
even though that is inconsistent with "symbol-macrolet" which some people
pronounce "symbol-macrolay". (The same people who pronounce the store named
"Target" as "Tar-zhay", no doubt. Sigh.) "LET" is never pronounced "lay"
either. The people who invented "symbol-macrolay" were less fussy about
whether regular old "macrolet" should be made to rhyme; they seemed
singularly focused on "symbol-macrolet" for some reason. I think this
was gregor and the clos crew, but maybe I'm misremembering. Anyway,
I remember thinking that they did design the operator so they should
have some leeway about its pronunciation.
Incidentally, "CLOS" was pronounced "KLOSS" (one syllable) by most US
West-Coasters and "CEE-LOSS" (two syllables) by most US East-Coasters,
as nearly as I could tell when it started. These days, it's more
scattered. Some people said "CEE-LOSS" sounded self-deprecating;
personally, I had just thought it was an attempt to sound like we had
some association with "C"... but then, maybe that was the self-deprecating
part and not the use of the LOSS morpheme.
> defun DAY-FUN
I think "dee-FUN" is the most common.
I've heard "DEF-un" sometimes but much less commonly.
I've never heard "DAY-FUN".
> princ PRINK
I've heard people say this. I always say "PRIN-cee".
This empahsizes the variance with "PRIN-one" (prin1), its natural partner.
> nconc EN-KONK
Yes.
> progn PROGN
"PROGUE-en" is the most common.
Some might say "PRO-gun" (note: not "PRO GUN" which is a political
movement. I know, it's rare for me to find a part of Lisp that is NOT
related to a political movement, but there it is...)
> eql AY-KU-ELL (with french U)
I'd have said "EE-QUEUE-EL". (Maybe the issue with "DAY-FUN" above
is that you write the "ee" in "deed" as "ay"?)
I have also heard "EEK-l", but I don't like it.
I say "EE-QUEUE" for "EQ" most of the time. Once in a while I say
"EEK", and I know other people who say "EEK" exclusively.
I sometimes pronounce "EQUAL" as "EE-QUEUE-EWE-AY-EL" for emphasis
though normally I just pronounce it like a regular word.
Note that the reason some pronunciations appear in the ANSI CL
spec is that some people, desperate to eradicate bad pronunciations
from their offices, pleaded with me to include "common" pronunciations
in order to help dissuade others from saying things in an awful way.
For example, "SETQ" is NOT pronounced "SET-kuh" (rhyming with the "uh"
in "mud") as someone had said he had friends that were doing.
And "ZEROP" is NOT pronounced "ZEE-rop" (rhyming with "hop"). Sigh.
Steve didn't ask about CONS. I usually say "CONZ", though at one time
I tried very hard to teach myself to say "CONSS" (like the soft
S in "consonant") to distinguish it verbally from the plural of COND
which is necessarily pronounced "CON[D]Z" by english speakers. I
still sometimes say "CONSS" but mostly I just cope with the ambiguity
of "CONZ" when it comes up by adding extra verbiage.
Erik Naggum
| Steve didn't ask about CONS. I usually say "CONZ", though at one time
| I tried very hard to teach myself to say "CONSS" (like the soft
| S in "consonant") to distinguish it verbally from the plural of COND
| which is necessarily pronounced "CON[D]Z" by english speakers. I
| still sometimes say "CONSS" but mostly I just cope with the ambiguity
| of "CONZ" when it comes up by adding extra verbiage.
funny you should mention that. I was talking to my girlfriend about
differences similar to the tonal qualities of Norwegian in English, and
house (n) vs house (vb) is one example of using an unvoiced s for the
noun and a voiced s (z) for the verb. she asked if it followed that
/konz/ should produce a /kons/. maybe you can answer, Kent?
#:Erik
--
@1999-07-22T00:37:33Z -- pi billion seconds since the turn of the century
Kent M Pitman
Well, I think in English we secretly subconsciously know the magic set
of verbs we get from other dialects that have this distinction and
cons is not in that set, so that's probably why we don't have
that temptation. Consider that we don't do that for "louse"; it's soft
"ss" in both noun and verb form. Again probably because it's not
part of a fixed set of exceptions. (Though maybe someone has a better
theory?)
I think for my own use that I always either use the noun and verb with
a hard/voiced s or the same pair with it unvoiced, but I have not observed
my use to vary by part of speech as indeed it would for house/"houze".
Marco Antoniotti
NOISE AHEAD
Steve Dickey <ste...@cory.eecs.berkeley.edu> writes:
> flet
> defun
> princ
> nconc
> progn
> eql
>
> How does one pronounce these?
As in Italian and German and other better behaved languages than
English. French is a bit messy, since it actually has more vowels
than Chinese :). (Yeah! Italians have the "trailing vowel problem",
but that is an artifact of our neuronal pathways)
flet flet
defun defun
princ princ
nconc nconc
progn progn
eql eql
:)
Cheers
--
Marco Antoniotti ===========================================
PARADES, Via San Pantaleo 66, I-00186 Rome, ITALY
tel. +39 - 06 68 10 03 17, fax. +39 - 06 68 80 79 26
http://www.parades.rm.cnr.it/~marcoxa
Fernando Mato Mira
Spanish-infuenced English-oriented mind:
flet F-LET or EFLET
defun DEFUN
princ PRIN-CE
nconc NKONK; ENEKONK maybe when speaking in Spanish
progn PROG-EN
eql E-KU-ELE; E-KIU-EL when speaking in English
clos KLOS
Barry Margolin
> funny you should mention that. I was talking to my girlfriend about
> differences similar to the tonal qualities of Norwegian in English, and
> house (n) vs house (vb) is one example of using an unvoiced s for the
> noun and a voiced s (z) for the verb. she asked if it followed that
> /konz/ should produce a /kons/. maybe you can answer, Kent?
Probably not. Both are presumably short for "construct", which uses a soft
S in both the noun and verb forms. However, the emphasis is on different
syllables: you con-struct' a con'-struct. Notice that the S is at the
beginning of a syllable in the full word -- I think the hard/soft
transition is generally only done at the end of a syllable (or maybe end of
word).
--
Barry Margolin, bar...@bbnplanet.com
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*** DON'T SEND TECHNICAL QUESTIONS DIRECTLY TO ME, post them to newsgroups.
Please DON'T copy followups to me -- I'll assume it wasn't posted to the group.
Tim Bradshaw
> funny you should mention that. I was talking to my girlfriend about
> differences similar to the tonal qualities of Norwegian in English, and
> house (n) vs house (vb) is one example of using an unvoiced s for the
> noun and a voiced s (z) for the verb. she asked if it followed that
> /konz/ should produce a /kons/. maybe you can answer, Kent?
You have destroyed for ever my ability to know this since I don't
regularly make tape recordings of myself talking about Lisp, but I
*think* that I might have done exactly that `natively': I would have
said that you conzed up a list, and what it consisted of was conses.
But I'm not sure any more.
--tim
Martin Rodgers
scrawled in the dust by Tim Bradshaw in a flowery script, reading:
> I would have
> said that you conzed up a list, and what it consisted of was conses.
> But I'm not sure any more.
While I've never spoken any Lisp, in my head I hear the same sounds that
you seem to use. I used the phrase "seem to" simply because I'm using the
sounds I would make if I read your words aloud...
> But I'm not sure any more.
I'm still sure, but give me a few more days.
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Dorai Sitaram
>> funny you should mention that. I was talking to my girlfriend about
>> differences similar to the tonal qualities of Norwegian in English, and
>> house (n) vs house (vb) is one example of using an unvoiced s for the
>> noun and a voiced s (z) for the verb. she asked if it followed that
>> /konz/ should produce a /kons/. maybe you can answer, Kent?
The usual punctilious people haven't pointed this out,
so I will. The "s" in "house" (noun singular) may be
pronounced /s/, but the "ses" in "houses" (noun plural)
is pronounced /z@z/ or /zIz/, just as in the verb
"houses". This dashes any hope for a neat "noun : verb
:: voiceless : voiced" rule.
--d
Christopher R. Barry
[...]
Before this thread dies, how do all of you pronounce the Emacs
directory editing facility dired? I suspect the proper pronounciation
is "dir * ed" - after all, it is the DIRectory EDitor. But I've always
naturally read it as "die * erd", as in, "there will be dire
consequences...."
Christopher
Kent M Pitman
"DIE-red" and "DURRH-ed" are both quite common.
I say the former.