(Mis)Pronunciation Confusion
John Donald Baker
, a TRS-80 model I. I was a sophomore when I first encountered an Apple II+.
There was this manual that came with the Apple that had the title _The DOS
Manual_. Never before seeing the term DOS (Neither had any of the teachers
connected with the machine. My math teacher used to program in FORTRAN on the
UNIVAC.), and never hearing it pronounced, I used what seemed to fit it best,
which was "dose". This was especially true since it looked like the spelling
of the Spanish 'dos' which is 'two' in English. That pronunciation seemed the
most intuitive even though I don't speak a word of Spanish (My backround is
German/Prussian and Irish.) However, 'D O S' and 'dose' were the only things
that connected in my mind.
It wasn't until I entered college that I heard 'DOS' pronounced 'dahss'.
It sounded weak and ineffectual, so I rejected it and maintained my pronun-
ciation. When I first had opportunity to converse with another person and
used the acronym, I was shot down by everyone within earshot. I tried to
explain that I had grown up in an isolated environment wher I knew more about
things computerized than anyone else (Which is absolutely true, even to this
day) and had never heard DOS pronounced before, so I used what what convenient.
Time has passed and I decided that I would change my pronunciation to what the
rest of the world seemed to be using. Now 'dose' pronunciation of DOS sounds
so foreign to me that I hardly believe that I used to use it.
<Actually I pronounce 'MSDOS' MeSsyDOG ;->
see-pee/emm lives. Reincarnated as zee-see-pee-are-three-four and en-zee-com.
John D. Baker ->An Apple 3.5", 5.25", 8" PCPI Applicard ZCPR3 nut//
Internet: JDB8042@{tamuts|rigel|sigma|summa|zeus|venus}.tamu.edu
BBSs: JOHN BAKER on Z-Node #45 [(713) 937-8886], The Vector Board
[(716) 544-1863], The Black Box (FIDO 1:106/601) [(713) 480-2686]
Karnage: "Fire at will!"
Wil (desperately dodging a hail of automatic weapons fire): "AAAAIYEEEE!!"
Karnage: "No, no. Do not fire at Wil, he is my Second Mate.
FIRE AT THE SEA-DUCK!!"
karsten
pronunciation, especially for acronyms. Many times we see a term in
print (or on a screen) hundreds of times before we hear it spoken.
I don't know how many times I've run across an unfamiliar term in a
technical conversation only to find out that it was a different
pronunciation of one I'd known for years. In addition people sometimes
modify a pronunciation to cast a disparaging spin on it.
Here's a few I can think of at this instant. Which version do you normally
hear (and do you know any others, particularly ones with interesting effects
or stories) ?
GIF - "jiff" / "giff" (as in "giraffe" vs. "garbage")
MSDOS - "missdoss" / "messdoss" / "emmessdoss"
80286 - "ayteetooayteesiks" / "aytohtooayteesiks"
ECL - "ek'll" / "eeseeell"
I'll admit being caught on the last one - I spent several minutes once
trying to figure out what "ek'll" logic might be (is it like random logic?
fuzzy logic? predicate logic?) until the person I was listening to started
waving a databook with "ECL..." on the cover.
(I also remember getting caught at a math competition in high school thinking
"finite" was pronounced like "infinite" without the initial "in", so I have a
history of this sort of problem...)
Paul S Secinaro
>The computer industry has given us plenty of opportunity for creative
>pronunciation, especially for acronyms. Many times we see a term in
>print (or on a screen) hundreds of times before we hear it spoken.
>I don't know how many times I've run across an unfamiliar term in a
>technical conversation only to find out that it was a different
>pronunciation of one I'd known for years. In addition people sometimes
>modify a pronunciation to cast a disparaging spin on it.
How about:
SCSI - "scuzzy" or "ess-cee-ess-eye"
kludge - pronounced either as "klooj" or as rhyming with "sludge"
or "smudge".
Xilinx (a gate array manufacturer) - supposed to be pronounced
"z-eye-links", but is often mangled beyond recognition, i.e.
"zil-nix", etc. (Actually, I question the marketing wisdom of naming
a company with an unpronounceable name).
I'll probably think of about ten more after I post this article.
Paul
--
Paul Secinaro, Undergrad | Dept. of Computer and Electrical Engineering
ps...@kepler.unh.edu | University of New Hampshire, Kingsbury Hall
p_sec...@unhh.unh.edu | Durham, NH 03824 (603) 862-3287
Arthur Evans
(rhyming with cobble). Later I heard about some "snow ball" thing and
it took a while to make the connection.
BTW -- how DO folks pronounce GIF? I've always thought it was a hard G,
as in good, but now that you mention it I don't think I've ever heard
the word pronounced.
Art
John Donald Baker
Just like the peanut butter. (JIF)
Dave Huang
>How about:
>
>SCSI - "scuzzy" or "ess-cee-ess-eye"
Once, I heard someone call SCSI "sexy"!
>Paul
>
>--
>Paul Secinaro, Undergrad | Dept. of Computer and Electrical Engineering
>ps...@kepler.unh.edu | University of New Hampshire, Kingsbury Hall
>p_sec...@unhh.unh.edu | Durham, NH 03824 (603) 862-3287
--
David Huang |
Internet: da...@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu | "Microwaves: They're not just
UUCP: ...!ut-emx!ccwf.cc.utexas.edu!daveh | for cooking anymore."
America Online: DrWho29 |
Charlie Gibbs
writes:
>As a mild counterexample, although I never used it I never heard anyone
>consistenetly try to make a pronouncable word out of IBM's Tape Operating
>System. It was always spelled out as tee-oh-ess. (TOS was a short-lived
>sibling of DOS/360. Bang-per-buck for disk systems advanced so rapidly
>that TOS never caught on.)
I never thought there was a question. It's pronounced "toss".
I guess that describes its fate too. :-)
>Opcode pronounciations are a similar example of inconsistent behavior.
>Why, for example, is the S/360 opcode BXLE (Branch on indeX Less or Equal)
>frequently pronounced as "BIX-lee" or "BIX'l" but BXH (Branch on indeX
>High) always spelled out as "bee-eks-aich"?
Probably because it's just about impossible to pronounce BXH
in any way at all. I originally pronounced BXLE as "bixel", but
when I was going to university I had a TA who pronounced it "boxel".
I liked it, and have pronounced it that way ever since. (BTW am I
the only one who thinks IBM severely blew it by having BXH and BXLE
instead of BXHE and BXL?)
Charli...@mindlink.bc.ca
For every vision there is an equal and opposite revision.
Sean Conner
>
>SCSI - "scuzzy" or "ess-cee-ess-eye"
>
>
>
>--
>Paul Secinaro, Undergrad | Dept. of Computer and Electrical Engineering
>ps...@kepler.unh.edu | University of New Hampshire, Kingsbury Hall
>p_sec...@unhh.unh.edu | Durham, NH 03824 (603) 862-3287
>
I heard a friend of mine pronouce SCSI as 'sexy'. Go figure.
-spc (SCSI isn't 'sexy', it's 'scuzzy'!)
David Jones
>BTW -- how DO folks pronounce GIF? I've always thought it was a hard G,
>as in good, but now that you mention it I don't think I've ever heard
>the word pronounced.
I always assumed it was a hard G, as in graphical, but a guy who works
at CompuServe (the creator of the standard) told me the official
pronounciation was with a soft g, as in "Choosy mothers choose...".
David L. Jones | Phone: (614) 292-6929
Ohio State Unviversity | Internet:
1971 Neil Ave. Rm. 406 | jon...@kcgl1.eng.ohio-state.edu
Columbus, OH 43210 | jon...@eng.ohio-state.edu
Disclaimer: A repudiation of a claim.
Joe Morris
[discussing the pronounciation of "DOS" which he pronounced as]
> "dose". This was especially true since it looked like the spelling
>of the Spanish 'dos' which is 'two' in English. That pronunciation seemed the
>most intuitive even though I don't speak a word of Spanish (My backround is
>German/Prussian and Irish.) However, 'D O S' and 'dose' were the only things
>that connected in my mind.
[...]
>It wasn't until I entered college that I heard 'DOS' pronounced 'dahss'.
Pronouncing DOS as "dahs" (which sort of sounds like a Southern drawl) has
been with us long before there was a Microsoft Corporation. It dates back
to the mainframe days when disks first becoming common; "Operating System"
was frequently pronounced "oz", and if it was disk-based it might be known
as the Disk Operating System. "Dozz" never caught on; the pronounciation
quickly moved to "dahs".
As a mild counterexample, although I never used it I never heard anyone
consistenetly try to make a pronouncable word out of IBM's Tape Operating
System. It was always spelled out as tee-oh-ess. (TOS was a short-lived
sibling of DOS/360. Bang-per-buck for disk systems advanced so rapidly
that TOS never caught on.)
Opcode pronounciations are a similar example of inconsistent behavior.
Why, for example, is the S/360 opcode BXLE (Branch on indeX Less or Equal)
frequently pronounced as "BIX-lee" or "BIX'l" but BXH (Branch on indeX
High) always spelled out as "bee-eks-aich"?
><Actually I pronounce 'MSDOS' MeSsyDOG ;->
A couple of years ago I was listening to the radio when I heard an ad
for some outfit which wanted to hire a programmer whose resume included
experience with MS-DOS.
The announcer pronounced the word "mizz dose". I've always wondered if
he thought this was some kind of non-sexist program...
Joe
Roger Glover
In article <1991Sep25.2...@sunb10.cs.uiuc.edu>, kar...@sunc5.cs.uiuc.edu (karsten) writes:
> The computer industry has given us plenty of opportunity for creative
> pronunciation, especially for acronyms. Many times we see a term in
> print (or on a screen) hundreds of times before we hear it spoken.
> I don't know how many times I've run across an unfamiliar term in a
> technical conversation only to find out that it was a different
> pronunciation of one I'd known for years. In addition people sometimes
> modify a pronunciation to cast a disparaging spin on it.
>
> Here's a few I can think of at this instant. Which version do you normally
> hear (and do you know any others, particularly ones with interesting effects
> or stories) ?
I've been hearing "tickpip" off and on for a couple of months now. It
wasn't until a fellow walked into my office and said, "Why does everyone
around here say T-C-P-I-P instead of 'tickpip'?" that I knew what it was.
I'll be interested in seeing the results of your survey.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Roger Glover Disclaimer: CRI does not necessarily share my opinions,
Cray Research, Inc. but that is not my fault.
Eric S. Raymond
> Why, for example, is the S/360 opcode BXLE (Branch on indeX Less or Equal)
> frequently pronounced as "BIX-lee" or "BIX'l" but BXH (Branch on indeX
> High) always spelled out as "bee-eks-aich"?
I've wondered about this kind of thing myself. There seems to be a rather
consistent set of rules behind hackish acronym pronunciation, in that most
people agree, most of the time, about things like this. But nobody can
explain their choices.
First stab at a rule set, which accounts for cases so far discussed:
1) A good pronunciation of an acronym is one which sounds like a word
in English (that is, at least has no forbidden vowel or consonant
clusters). The object of the game is to come up with a good
pronunciation that involves the fewest possible mutations of the
acronym spelling (see rule 3).
2) Vowels in acronyms may be pronounced short or long.
3) Consonants may be pronounced either as their normal values or as
their "name" pronunciations (at most three of the latter per acronym).
Semivowel consonants (especially /r/,/l/) may be treated as vowels.
3) One may insert a vowel in order to break up a forbidden consonant
cluster. Schwa or neutral vowels are most preferred, emphasized
"long" vowels least.
4) Preference goes to pronunciations which keep the longest possible
substrings unmutated.
By these rules:
1) DOS: /dahs/, not /dose/, becous short vowels are preferred.
1) BXLE: /bik's@l/ and /bik'slee/ are about equally preferred. There's
some context sensitivity here, too. If there were a BXL instruction,
it would preempt the first alternative.
2) BXH: /bee-eks-aitch/ is preferred over */b@k's@h/ because the latter
would require two insertions.
and...
JRST: /jerst/, not /jay-ar-ess-tee/, because pronouncing the /r/
vocalicly is better than that many "name"-prounced vowels.
POPJ: /pop-jay/ over, say, /pop'@j/ because one "name"-pronounced
consonant is better than a schwa insertion.
Comment from linguists? Counterexamples? Refinements?
--
Eric S. Raymond = er...@snark.thyrsus.com (Jargon File Editor)
Kevin D. Quitt
> I heard a friend of mine pronouce SCSI as 'sexy'. Go figure.
That's Apple's official pronunciation.
--
_
Kevin D. Quitt srhqla!venus!kdq kdq%ve...@sr.com
3D systems, inc. 26081 Avenue Hall Valencia, CA 91355
VOICE (805) 295-5600 x430 FAX (805) 257-1200
96.37% of all statistics are made up.
Ian Schmidt
> That's Apple's official pronunciation
No its not. In my copy of the Apple IIgs GS/OS Reference, copyright
1990, it says SCSI is prononced "scuzzy". I had heard that "sexy" is
the IBM version. Not that it matters with the Apple/IBM contract.
-Ian Apple IIgs: The Power II Be Your Best (we've had dynamic filesystems
since 1988!)
Norman Diamond
>(BTW am I the only one who thinks IBM severely blew it by having BXH and BXLE
>instead of BXHE and BXL?)
Why is this? BXLE fit very well the definition of Fortran DO-loops that was
to be standardized two years after the machine was released, and odds are it
matched the Fortran of its own time as well.
Of course, since PL/I indexed DO-loops had a zero-trip rule rather than a
one-trip rule, BXLE was not as appropriate, so perhaps IBM's efforts were
not as consistent as they would have wished.
--
Norman Diamond dia...@jit081.enet.dec.com
If this were the company's opinion, I wouldn't be allowed to post it.
signature, n.: acm special interest group on studies of the real world.
DJ Delorie
> The computer industry has given us plenty of opportunity for creative
> pronunciation, especially for acronyms. Many times we see a term in
> print (or on a screen) hundreds of times before we hear it spoken.
My first major encounter with this was with the 8086 assembler opcodes
STI and CLI (clear/set interrupt flag). I always spelled them (S-T-I)
or gave the long name (set interrupt). Then I heard someone pronounce
them "sly" (as in "pig $") and "cly" and I almost burst into laughter,
since I thought he was talking about Sylvester Stallone and his horse.
Charlie Gibbs
(Rich Greenberg) writes:
>> (BTW am I
>>the only one who thinks IBM severely blew it by having BXH and BXLE
>>instead of BXHE and BXL?)
>
>Its my understanding from having heard this in early 360 days that the
>BXLE & BHX instructions were there because they made fortran DO loops
>easier to implement.
>Mabe BXHE and BXL instead would have made each DO loop 6 bytes longer
>or some such.
I was working exclusively in assembly language at the time, so
I wouldn't have recognized the advantages to FORTRAN, if any. All
I knew was that it was a pain in the ass when manipulating tables
with pointers. I tend to reserve enough memory for the largest
number of table entries that I'm likely to encounter, then when I
load the table I store the address of the next available (first
unused) entry in a pointer so I know where to stop searching. It's
much better to store a pointer to the start of unused space than
to the last actual entry; you don't need any special code to handle
cases where the table is empty. But then I have to back off the
table limit pointer before I enter a BXLE loop:
LA 15,TABLE Scan with a scratch register.
LA 0,L'TABLE Length of one entry
L 1,TABLIM First unused entry
CR 15,1 Is there anything in the table?
BNL NOFIND No.
SR 15,0 --->>> Fudge things for BXLE. <<<---
LOOP (appropriate comparison) Is this the entry we want?
BE FOUNDIT Yes.
BXLE 15,0,LOOP Check the next entry.
NOFIND (We didn't find it.)
...
FOUNDIT (We found it.)
...
TABLIM DS A Logical end of table
...
TABLE DS 100CL10 100 ten-byte entries
TABEND EQU * End of available table space
For a table consisting of a fixed number of constants, I could
dispense with the SR 15,0 fudge above, and replace L 1,TABLIM with
LA 1,TABEND-L'TABLE
A minor irritation perhaps, but BXL would have flowed much better.
It's a lot cleaner in C, which is zero-based all the way:
struct tabentry tab[MAXSIZE];
struct tabentry *tp, *tablim;
for (tp = tab; tp < tablim; tp++)
...
I wonder whether an 360-based C compiler would bother trying to
set up a BXLE for this...
Charli...@mindlink.bc.ca
"I'm cursed with hair from HELL!" -- Night Court
Andrew M. Boardman
>PROM is easy, as is EPROM, but how do we distinguish EEPROM ?
Problem is, "E EPROM" or "double-E PROM" always causes confusion with the
departmental social events.
andrew
Rich Greenberg
>in any way at all. I originally pronounced BXLE as "bixel", but
>when I was going to university I had a TA who pronounced it "boxel".
>I liked it, and have pronounced it that way ever since. (BTW am I
>the only one who thinks IBM severely blew it by having BXH and BXLE
>instead of BXHE and BXL?)
Its my understanding from having heard this in early 360 days that the
BXLE & BHX instructions were there because they made fortran DO loops
easier to implement.
Mabe BXHE and BXL instead would have made each DO loop 6 bytes longer
or some such.
I use either so seldom that I have to get out my POPs whenever I
use one. For non-IBM types (not you Joe), the "POPs" is the assembler
coders bible, the Principles of Operation book. Explains how each
360/370/390 machine instruction works in more detail than you really
wanted to know. The 360 POPs was about 1/2 inch (1.27 cm) thick.
The ESA POPs strains my 3 inch (7.5 cm) binder, and is an excelent
cure for insomnia. :-)
--
Disclaimer: The above writings are the ramblings of one human being
and have nothing what-so-ever to do with Locus Computing Corp.
---> Rich Greenberg, ri...@locus.com TinsleTown, USA 213-337-5904
Located in Inglewood, Ca, a small city completely contained within Los Angeles
Gym Z. Quirk
>dnic...@ceilidh.beartrack.com (Don Nichols (DoN.)) writes:
>
>>PROM is easy, as is EPROM, but how do we distinguish EEPROM ?
>
I've always called them "double-E PROMS"...
>>Donald Nichols (DoN.)
>\ / / / / /\ | And there on the other side, in the middle of the other
> \\/ \/\ /\ \/ \/_ | side, away from everything else on the other side, in
> / \/ / \ \/ \ | parentheses,capital letters,quotated read the following
>____________________| words...("KIDS, THIS PAGE INTENTIONALLY LEFT BLANK.")
--
Capt. Gym Z. Quirk (Known to some as Taki Kogoma) tko...@triton.unm.edu
Veteran of the "Grand sf-lovers fiasco" of July '91-???.
Secret Master of rec.arts.startrek
-= Insert witty quote here =-
Don Nichols (DoN.)
>In article <1991Sep26.1...@nic.unh.edu> ps...@wayne.unh.edu (Paul S Secinaro) writes:
>>How about:
>>
>>SCSI - "scuzzy" or "ess-cee-ess-eye"
>
>Once, I heard someone call SCSI "sexy"!
Well - the forerunner of SCSI was SASI "sassy". Sounded much more
interesting/attractive than "scuzzy" did.
PROM is easy, as is EPROM, but how do we distinguish EEPROM ?
--
Donald Nichols (DoN.) | Voice (Days): (703) 664-1585 (Eves): (703) 938-4564
D&D Data | Email: <dnic...@ceilidh.beartrack.com>
I said it - no one else | <dnic...@ceilidh.aes.com>
--- Black Holes are where God is dividing by zero ---
Dave Huang
>-Ian Apple IIgs: The Power II Be Your Best (we've had dynamic filesystems
>since 1988!)
Dynamic filesystems as in filesystem formats that are continually
changing? ;-)
Ian Schmidt
_that_, Dave.)
-Ian
John Donald Baker
Peter da Silva
Apple tried to get people to pronounce it "SeCSI".
--
-- Peter da Silva. 3D0G `-_-'
-- Taronga Park BBS.
-- +1 713 568 0480|1032 2400/n/8/1.
-- "Have you hugged your wolf today?"
Peter da Silva
> No its not. In my copy of the Apple IIgs GS/OS Reference, copyright
> 1990, it says SCSI is prononced "scuzzy".
That's nice. Apple lost the "scuzzy/sexy" war back around '86 or '87.
> -Ian Apple IIgs: The Power II Be Your Best (we've had dynamic filesystems
> since 1988!)
We've had them since 1985.
Rev. Ben A. Mesander
>No, I mean dynamically installable and removable. (But you know
>_that_, Dave.)
Ahhhh! You mean that you can move floppies in and out of the drives!
>-Ian
--
| b...@epmooch.UUCP (Ben Mesander) | "Elvis, you take so many pills, |
| ben%serval...@uokmax.ecn.uoknor.edu | how can you feel anything?" |
| ...!chinet!servalan!epmooch!ben | --Priscilla Presley |
Ron Dippold
>Here's a few I can think of at this instant. Which version do you normally
>hear (and do you know any others, particularly ones with interesting effects
>or stories) ?
>GIF - "jiff" / "giff" (as in "giraffe" vs. "garbage")
"jiff" - this is the official pronunciation (yes, they actually have
one!). I still hear "giff" from a few people, I even heard "gief"
from one deranged person ("eye" in the middle).
>MSDOS - "missdoss" / "messdoss" / "emmessdoss"
"emmessdoss" by almost everyone. About a few years ago there were a
lot of newbies who pronounced anything with DOS as "doughs". As in
"Disk Oughperating System" I guess.
>80286 - "ayteetooayteesiks" / "aytohtooayteesiks"
Both about the same, maybe the first more often, since it's faster.
>ECL - "ek'll" / "eeseeell"
"eeseell"
Another one is SYSOP - it's "sisop", but a lot of people who
apparently thought we were "seistem operators" used to pronounce it
"seisop" (that "eye" sound again).
--
Signature length is inversely proportional to intelligence | Ron Dippold
Don Nichols (DoN.)
Yes, especilly for the latter. The mind boggles - a dance event
exclusively for Electronics/Electrical Engineers. Would anybody be
dancing? Would there be anybody to dance with? :-) From my days in college
the ratio would have been a killer. She would have been VERY tired at the
end of the event. Hopefully the ratios are better now.
John Harvey
...
>BTW -- how DO folks pronounce GIF? I've always thought it was a hard G,
>as in good, but now that you mention it I don't think I've ever heard
>the word pronounced.
I always pronounced it "gif" as in "gift".
The one that causes real trouble is "cache". I can remember finding out it
wasn't pronounced like "catch".
How do you say "/dev/tty"? I've heard people call "/dev/pty0" "pitty zero",
and they call "/dev/tty0" something worse.
john harvey dhbgr sbe gur qnl: "fuvg unccraf"
JOHNBOB at AUSVMQ I don't speak for my employer.
joh...@there.austin.ibm.com joh...@innerdoor.austin.ibm.com
@cs.utexas.edu:ibmchs!there.austin.ibm.com!johnbob
uunet!cs.utexas.edu!ibmaus!auschs!there.austin.ibm.com!johnbob
--
john harvey dhbgr sbe gur qnl: "fuvg unccraf"
JOHNBOB at AUSVMQ I don't speak for my employer.
joh...@there.austin.ibm.com joh...@innerdoor.austin.ibm.com
@cs.utexas.edu:ibmchs!there.austin.ibm.com!johnbob
Raymond Chen
>I've heard people call "/dev/pty0" "pitty zero", and they call "/dev/tty0"
>something worse.
Which brings to mind the apocryphal story of an administrator helping
out a woman whose process got wedged. ``Let me do a ps on your tty.''
(Left as an exercise to figure out which pronunciations of `ps' and
`tty' were used.)
Peter da Silva
> >MSDOS - "missdoss" / "messdoss" / "emmessdoss"
> "emmessdoss" by almost everyone.
Mess-loss, messy-dos, emm ess dog, emm ess loss, ...
h...@jach.hawaii.edu
>dnic...@ceilidh.beartrack.com (Don Nichols (DoN.)) writes:
>
>
>
Perfect!
______________________________________________________________________________
Henry Stilmack )
Computing Systems Manager ) "Haven't you heard,
UK/Netherlands/Canada Joint Astronomy Centre ) it's a battle of words -
665 Komohana St., Hilo, HI 96720 ) and most of them are lies..."
h...@jach.Hawaii.Edu )
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ian Schmidt
(FSTs) on and off of your boot disk and have as many or as few file systems
accessable as you like.
-Ian
Stephane Tsacas
In article <1cwHl8#3p0mxx5mcQdt8sJxtZ7nGTqL=er...@snark.thyrsus.com> er...@snark.thyrsus.com (Eric S. Raymond) writes:
In <jcmorris.685888293@mwunix> Joe Morris wrote:
> Why, for example, is the S/360 opcode BXLE (Branch on indeX Less or Equal)
> frequently pronounced as "BIX-lee" or "BIX'l" but BXH (Branch on indeX
> High) always spelled out as "bee-eks-aich"?
I've wondered about this kind of thing myself. There seems to be a rather
consistent set of rules behind hackish acronym pronunciation, in that most
people agree, most of the time, about things like this. But nobody can
explain their choices.
[...]
and...
JRST: /jerst/, not /jay-ar-ess-tee/, because pronouncing the /r/
vocalicly is better than that many "name"-prounced vowels.
POPJ: /pop-jay/ over, say, /pop'@j/ because one "name"-pronounced
consonant is better than a schwa insertion.
How do you pronounce JFCL ?
tnx
--
,
Stephane Tsacas UUCP: tsa...@ilog.fr
ILOG ...!{uunet,mcvax,inria}!ilog!tsacas
2 av Gallieni tsacas%il...@uunet.UU.NET
BP85 - 94253 Gentilly Phone: (33-1) 46 63 6666
FRANCE <<PUSHJ P, POPJ P, recursively>>
Steve Lamont
That's no problem, since EEs never can get dates for those sort of
things anyhow. :-)
spl (the p stands for
Prom night, shmom night,
where's my soldering
iron?)
--
Steve Lamont, SciViGuy -- (619) 534-7968 -- s...@dim.ucsd.edu
UCSD Microscopy and Imaging Resource/UCSD Med School/La Jolla, CA 92093-0608
"Water for people, not landscaping"
- Bumper sticker seen in Southern California
Rich Alderson
>Xilinx (a gate array manufacturer) - supposed to be pronounced
>"z-eye-links", but is often mangled beyond recognition, i.e.
>"zil-nix", etc. (Actually, I question the marketing wisdom of naming
>a company with an unpronounceable name).
You mean like "XEROX"?
Come to think of it, marketing hasn't been their strongest point...
--
Rich Alderson 'I wish life was not so short,' he thought. 'Languages take
Unix Systems such a time, and so do all the things one wants to know about.'
L&IR, Stanford --J. R. R. Tolkien,
alde...@alderson.stanford.edu _The Lost Road_
JJJJJust JJJJJohn
> their "name" pronunciations (at most three of the latter per acronym).
> Semivowel consonants (especially /r/,/l/) may be treated as vowels.
What about TCPIP? I've always heard it spelled out (aka "name"
pronunciation: tee-cee-pee-eye-pee)...
--jjw
--
Her eyes were cold and || John Wichers || wic...@husc4.harvard.edu
harsh, which made them || 121 Museum St #2, Somerville Ma. 02143
tough to chew. - Danno || Anarchy - It's not a law, it's just a good idea.
|| Jesus saves sinners ... and redeems them for valuable cash prizes!!! ||
Rich Alderson
>wasn't pronounced like "catch".
Which of course reminds me of a story told me by an acquaintance who was there,
about a machine upgrade at Citibank.
Seems they had a DECSYSTEM-2040, and were going to upgrade to a 2050. Rather a
costly operation, because of the high-speed cache (which *defines* the 2050 WRT
the 2040).
One operator had asked and been told that this was the difference.
Later, a group of users asked, via on-line communications, what was the
difference. The operator, having heard the difference from the systems types,
decided to answer.
The difference, according to his understanding, was
"CASH."
Eric S. Raymond
> I've wondered about this kind of thing myself. There seems to be a rather
> consistent set of rules behind hackish acronym pronunciation, in that most
> people agree, most of the time, about things like this. But nobody can
> explain their choices.
>
> tnx
*I* don't, actually; it's not live slang for me. Of those reported in TNHD,
/jif'kl/ seems most natural to me, though the /i/ is so uncolored it might
as well be a schwa (neutral vowel).
--
Eric S. Raymond = er...@snark.thyrsus.com (mad mastermind of TMN-Netnews)
Sylvia Dutcher
>>
>> How do you pronounce JFCL ?
>> tnx
>
>*I* don't, actually; it's not live slang for me. Of those reported in TNHD,
>/jif'kl/ seems most natural to me, though the /i/ is so uncolored it might
>as well be a schwa (neutral vowel).
>--
Most people pronounce(d) it juh-fi'ckle, at least a DEC, with the accent
on the fih part. Sort of like popsickle but stressing the second syllable.
Ignatios Souvatzis
In article <1991Sep26.1...@nic.unh.edu> ps...@wayne.unh.edu
(Paul S Secinaro) writes:
>How about:
>
>SCSI - "scuzzy" or "ess-cee-ess-eye"
After the SCSI tape drive managed to crash our file server, I started
to pronounce SCSI as "skoo-zee" (ital. "scusi" == eng. "sorry")
--
Paper mail: Ignatios Souvatzis, Radioastronomisches Institut der
Universitaet Bonn, Auf dem Huegel 71, D-5300 Bonn 1, FRG
Internet: u50...@mpirbn.mpifr-bonn.mpg.de
so...@babsy.mpifr-bonn.mpg.de
"Achtung!
Es freut uns, so gute Displaysoftware installiert zu haben, dass einige
Benutzer den Unterschied zwischen dem Bild auf einem Monitor und einem Blatt
Papier uebersehen. Benutzer, die Marken mit Kugelschreiber auf dem Monitor
machen, werden gebeten, darauf zu achten, dass Monitore sich schlecht wie
Papier behandeln lassen, sich also weder fuer das Abheften, noch Knicken
eignen. Die Korrektur von Tipfehlern mit Tipp-Ex sollte schon aufgrund der
Schaedlichkeit dieser Korrekturfluessigkeit vermieden werden."
Pete Hardie
>What about TCPIP? I've always heard it spelled out (aka "name"
>pronunciation: tee-cee-pee-eye-pee)...
Because it's TCP/IP, so it's 2, 2, 2 acronyms in one.....
--
Pete Hardie ...!emory!nastar!phardie
Digital Transmission Systems, Inc. (voice) (404) 497-0101
Evan Kirshenbaum
>
> How do you pronounce JFCL ?
We always pronounced it /'dZIf kl/ (jiff'-kul).
Other interesting mnemonics in the set included
AOBJN /'AUb dZ@n/ (owb'-jen)
CAILE /'kAI li/ (kigh'-lee)
SOSL /'sO s@l/ (saw'-sull)
HRROI /h@r 'rOI/ (herr-roy')
MOVN /'mA vn/ (mah'-vin)
BLT /blIt/ (blit)
PBIN /p@ 'bIn/ (puh-bin')
PSOUT /pI 'sAUt/ (pih-sout')
RDTTY /'rid tI ti/ (read'-titty)
There were even morphological rules on the combinations. The suffixes
GE (/dZi/) and LE (/li/) tended to form their own syllable, while E
(/i/) either formed its own syllable or stole the preceding consonant
and N (/n/), G (/dZ/), and L (/l/) stole the preceding consonant and
inserted a schwa or /I/. Thus
CAMLE /'kam li/ AOSGE /'AUs dZi/
but
CAML /'ka m@l/ AOSG /'AU sIdZ/
(although I seem to recall that -G often forced the mnemonic to be
spelled. My memory of this is hazy. What other mnemonics didn't have
pronunciations?)
Evan Kirshenbaum
HP Laboratories
3500 Deer Creek Road, Building 26U
Palo Alto, CA 94304
Jeff Lee
> wasn't until a fellow walked into my office and said, "Why does everyone
> around here say T-C-P-I-P instead of 'tickpip'?" that I knew what it was.
> I'll be interested in seeing the results of your survey.
Interestingly enough, I've usually heard a combination of the two:
T-C-pip.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=+=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Jeff Lee | UUCP: uhasun!smylex!jlee
| Internet: jlee%smyle...@uhasun.hartford.edu
| Voice: (203) 666-5836 (Newington, CT)
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=+=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Edmund, you've killed Nursie! That's horrid!
Brian Cooper
How about the BLWP (Branch and Load Workspace Pointer) and RTWP (Return w/
Workspace Pointer) instructions from the TMS 9900 architecture? We referred
to them as 'BLOWUP' and 'RE-TWIRP' instructions. 'BLOWUP' was usually
rather apt...
--
Brian Cooper b...@Eyring.COM uunet!lanai!bcc
Eyring Corp. +1 801-375-2434 or 1 800 YES PDOS
Eric S. Raymond
> In article <1cwHl8#3p0mxx5mcQdt8sJxtZ7nGTqL=er...@snark.thyrsus.com> er...@snark.thyrsus.com (Eric S. Raymond) writes:
> >3) Consonants may be pronounced either as their normal values or as
> > their "name" pronunciations (at most three of the latter per acronym).
> > Semivowel consonants (especially /r/,/l/) may be treated as vowels.
>
> What about TCPIP? I've always heard it spelled out (aka "name"
> pronunciation: tee-cee-pee-eye-pee)...
Good point --- this does look like an exception. Maybe because of the
slash in TCP/IP? ;-)
Eric S. Raymond
> How about the BLWP (Branch and Load Workspace Pointer) and RTWP (Return w/
> Workspace Pointer) instructions from the TMS 9900 architecture? We referred
> to them as 'BLOWUP' and 'RE-TWIRP' instructions. 'BLOWUP' was usually
> rather apt...
Hmm. The rules I suggested in a (possibly misguided) attempt to capture
common practice would suggest /bliw'@p/ and /ri'tw@p/ respectively, where
/i/ might be replaced by any stressed vowel (short ones preferred).
I think what may be going on in the first case is the effect of a higher-level
rule favoring `obvious' pronunciations even if they involve long-vowel
insertions; you can't look at BLWP and *not* think `blowup'.
The second case, that vocalic r-insertion, is bizarre and I don't pretend
to understand why it might be favored.
Rich Alderson
>How do you pronounce JFCL ?
[jI'.fI.k@l]--rhymes with popsickle.
Rich Alderson
>In article <TSACAS.91S...@roosevelt.ilog.fr> tsa...@roosevelt.ilog.fr (Stephane Tsacas) writes:
>>
>> How do you pronounce JFCL ?
Dialect differences (Stanford vs. HP?):
>We always pronounced it /'dZIf kl/ (jiff'-kul).
>
>Other interesting mnemonics in the set included
>
> AOBJN /'AUb dZ@n/ (owb'-jen)
> CAILE /'kAI li/ (kigh'-lee)
[keI' li] (kay'-lee)
> SOSL /'sO s@l/ (saw'-sull)
> HRROI /h@r 'rOI/ (herr-roy')
> MOVN /'mA vn/ (mah'-vin)
All the MOVE instructions kept their etymological pronunciation:
MOVN [muv' @^n] ("movin'"--@^ is "barred I")
MOVNI [muv' ni] (move'-knee)
MOVSI [muv' si] (move'-see)
> BLT /blIt/ (blit)
> PBIN /p@ 'bIn/ (puh-bin')
> PSOUT /pI 'sAUt/ (pih-sout')
Different syllabification and stress: [pIs' aut]
> RDTTY /'rid tI ti/ (read'-titty)
>
>There were even morphological rules on the combinations. The suffixes
>GE (/dZi/) and LE (/li/) tended to form their own syllable, while E
>(/i/) either formed its own syllable or stole the preceding consonant
>and N (/n/), G (/dZ/), and L (/l/) stole the preceding consonant and
>inserted a schwa or /I/. Thus
> CAMLE /'kam li/ AOSGE /'AUs dZi/
>but
> CAML /'ka m@l/ AOSG /'AU sIdZ/
>(although I seem to recall that -G often forced the mnemonic to be
>spelled. My memory of this is hazy. What other mnemonics didn't have
>pronunciations?)
[aus' ji] => AOSGE
[ei' Os.ji`] => AOSG (. is a strong syllable pause, with secondary
stress on the final syllable)
And one of the funniest to my ear
JFFO [jif' o]
though why it's funnier than AOBJN I couldn't say...
William R. Ward
>BTW -- how DO folks pronounce GIF? I've always thought it was a hard G,
>as in good, but now that you mention it I don't think I've ever heard
>the word pronounced.
Why, "jiff," of course. Didn't you notice that (exceptions aside, as
with everything in English) the letters C and G when followed by I or E
are usually "soft" (cell, giraffe), and when followed by A, O, U, or
Y they are "hard" (calf, goat, cut).
It follows, that since "GIF" has a G followed by an I, the G must be
soft. "Jiff."
--
William R Ward <her...@cats.ucsc.edu>
I have perfumed my bed with myrrh, aloes, and cinnamon.
Come, let us take our fill of love until the morning.
-- Proverbs 7:17-18
William R. Ward
In <rdippold.685909315@cancun> rdip...@cancun.qualcomm.com (Ron Dippold) writes:
>>80286 - "ayteetooayteesiks" / "aytohtooayteesiks"
>Both about the same, maybe the first more often, since it's faster.
I've found that most people (myself included) will pronounce 80286 as
"eight oh two eighty six," but 8088 or 8086 as "eighty eighty eight" or
eighty eighty six." My favorite was the 8088A.. "eighty eighty eight A."
Norman Diamond
>In <1991Oct1.1...@Eyring.COM> Brian Cooper wrote:
>
>The second case, that vocalic r-insertion, is bizarre and I don't pretend
>to understand why it might be favored.
It's easier to understand if you don't try to think about it, you twirp.
--
Norman Diamond dia...@jit081.enet.dec.com
If this were the company's opinion, I wouldn't be allowed to post it.
signature, n.: acm special interest group on studies of the real world.
Jeremy Lawrence
>In <32...@as0c.sei.cmu.edu> a...@sei.cmu.edu (Arthur Evans) writes:
>>BTW -- how DO folks pronounce GIF? I've always thought it was a hard G,
>>as in good, but now that you mention it I don't think I've ever heard
>>the word pronounced.
>Why, "jiff," of course. Didn't you notice that (exceptions aside, as
>with everything in English) the letters C and G when followed by I or E
>are usually "soft" (cell, giraffe), and when followed by A, O, U, or
>Y they are "hard" (calf, goat, cut).
>It follows, that since "GIF" has a G followed by an I, the G must be
>soft. "Jiff."
And gift is likewise pronounced "jift". Too bad they didn't teach me that at
school :-) .
Jeremy Lawrence g912...@its.uow.edu.au
Electrical & Computer Eng. g912...@wampyr.cc.uow.edu.au
University of Wollongong +61 42 21-3244
William R. Ward
In <1991Sep27.0...@ceilidh.beartrack.com> dnic...@ceilidh.beartrack.com (Don Nichols (DoN.)) writes:
>PROM is easy, as is EPROM, but how do we distinguish EEPROM ?
Well, that is simple. "eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee prom" as opposed to "ee
prom."
I always liked IEEE. "aye EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!" of
course. (The Hawai'ian word for "sex" is "'ai" which is pronounced not
to differently.......)
Peter da Silva
> rule favoring `obvious' pronunciations even if they involve long-vowel
> insertions; you can't look at BLWP and *not* think `blowup'.
Sure. If you speak Commonwealth Hackish it's obviously "Blorp".
Steve Wahl
component words, modulator and demodulator -- mah-DEEM ?
--> Steve
--
Steve Wahl st...@digibd.com
Digi International, Inc.
Eden Prairie, MN (612) 943-5387
The Unknown User
In art<1991Oct02.1...@digibd.com> st...@digibd.com (Steve Wahl) writes:
>Did anyone else ever try pronouncing MODEM using the sounds from the
>component words, modulator and demodulator -- mah-DEEM ?
No I didn't... but it's a good point.. because it's good retaliation
for people who pick on pronouncing "sysop" s-eye-sop (rather than "sissop").
Yet I use the word rarely nowadays as I haven't regularly used 'normal'
BBSes for 3-4 years now at least. (UNIX/Internet/UseNet are good enough)..
But when I get my own Internet site, then I guess I'll be the sysop.
--
/unk...@ucscb.ucsc.edu Apple IIGS Forever! unk...@cats.ucsc.edu\
\WANT to help get ULTIMA VI //e or GS written?-mail me. CHEAP CD info-mail me./
Eric S. Raymond
> er...@snark.thyrsus.com (Eric S. Raymond) writes:
> > I think what may be going on in the first case is the effect of a higher-level
> > rule favoring `obvious' pronunciations even if they involve long-vowel
> > insertions; you can't look at BLWP and *not* think `blowup'.
>
> Sure. If you speak Commonwealth Hackish it's obviously "Blorp".
Eh? Maybe BLRP might become `blorp' but I don't see why BLWP would.
Dave Gymer
>In article <jcmorris.685888293@mwunix> jcmorris@mwunix (Joe Morris)
>writes:
>>... IBM's Tape Operating
>>System. It was always spelled out as tee-oh-ess. (TOS was a short-lived
>>sibling of DOS/360. Bang-per-buck for disk systems advanced so rapidly
>>that TOS never caught on.)
>
> I never thought there was a question. It's pronounced "toss".
>I guess that describes its fate too. :-)
>
>Charli...@mindlink.bc.ca
TOS (Trameil (sp?) Op. Sys.) is the standard OS on the Atari ST and TT
machines, and everyone I know who mentions it calls it 'toss'. On reflection,
this sums it up quite nicely... (Long live MiNT is Not TOS! :-)
--
/* 'Grave' Dave Gymer --------- Internet: d...@Cs.Nott.AC.UK *\
+* 42 St Marys Park, Louth, Lincolnshire, LN11 0EF, England *+
+* Olivier's Law: "Experience is something you don't get *+
\*-------------------------- until just after you need it." */
Sam Wilson
% her...@cats.ucsc.edu (William R. Ward) writes:
% >In <32...@as0c.sei.cmu.edu> a...@sei.cmu.edu (Arthur Evans) writes:
% > >BTW -- how DO folks pronounce GIF? ...
% >
% >Why, "jiff," of course. ...
%
% And gift is likewise pronounced "jift". Too bad they didn't teach me that at
% school :-) .
And tonight I'm going out with my jirl!
Sam
D. Glenn Arthur Jr.
>How about the BLWP (Branch and Load Workspace Pointer) and RTWP (Return w/
>Workspace Pointer) instructions from the TMS 9900 architecture? We referred
>to them as 'BLOWUP' and 'RE-TWIRP' instructions. 'BLOWUP' was usually
>rather apt...
The professor for my TMS 9900 assembly class mentioned that some
superstitious folks preferred to pronounce BLWP "bullwhip", but we
all said "blowup" and "retwhip". Though if I'd been reading a.s.b
back then I might have said "bullwhip". (No, a.s.b didn't exist
yet -- that was back in the days before the grand reorganization
("in the days when the net was flat" I think is the quote?) --
before I even got exposed to Usenet, in fact.)
--
D. Glenn Arthur Jr., The Human Vibrator, gl...@bessel.umd.edu
"Being a _man_ means knowing that one has
a choice not to act like a 'man'."
(From the "So You Think You're a Man" workshop at Starwood, 1991)
You can send me mail anonymously at wi...@wizvax.methuen.ma.us
Peter da Silva
> In <64J...@taronga.hackercorp.com> Peter da Silva wrote:
> > er...@snark.thyrsus.com (Eric S. Raymond) writes:
> > > I think what may be going on in the first case is the effect of a higher-level
> > > rule favoring `obvious' pronunciations even if they involve long-vowel
> > > insertions; you can't look at BLWP and *not* think `blowup'.
> > Sure. If you speak Commonwealth Hackish it's obviously "Blorp".
> Eh? Maybe BLRP might become `blorp' but I don't see why BLWP would.
That's because you have an American accent, I suppose.
Peter David THOMPSON
/******************************Disclaimer*********************************
** My opinion(s) are wholly my own (No-one else wants them) and is(are) **
** independant of any part of the University of Melbourne, Australia. **
******* Followups to p...@mundil.cs.mu.OZ.AU; flames to /dev/null. *******/
NOTE: This sentence does not in fact have the property it claims it lacks.
Noah Friedman
>How do you pronounce UUCP?
You-You-See-Pea
Eric S. Raymond
> How do you pronounce UUCP?
This is invariably sounded out: /yoo-yoo-see-pee/. I suppose that violates
my attempt at a ruleset.
Paul Hardy
> In <64J...@taronga.hackercorp.com> Peter da Silva wrote:
>> er...@snark.thyrsus.com (Eric S. Raymond) writes:
>> > I think what may be going on in the first case is the effect of a higher-level
>> > rule favoring `obvious' pronunciations even if they involve long-vowel
>> > insertions; you can't look at BLWP and *not* think `blowup'.
>>
>> Sure. If you speak Commonwealth Hackish it's obviously "Blorp".
>
> Eh? Maybe BLRP might become `blorp' but I don't see why BLWP would.
Round here BLWP was/is always pronounced as if spelt `bullwhip'.
We are talking about the Texas Instruments 9900 `Branch and Link with Workspace
Pointer' instruction aren't we ?
--
Paul Hardy, Chief Programmer,
Laser-Scan Ltd, Science Park, Milton Rd, Cambridge CB4 4FY, UK
Tel (+44) 223 420414; Fax (+44) 223 420044; Telex 817346 LSLCAM G
Email: pa...@lsl.co.uk via JANET, or VAX PSImail DTE 234222300203::PAUL.
Life...
>Did anyone else ever try pronouncing MODEM using the sounds from the
>component words, modulator and demodulator -- mah-DEEM ?
Thanks for the (almost) Dune reference. Now I'm going to have to start
pronouncing it that way!
>Steve Wahl st...@digibd.com
--
/// ____ \\\ 1 AREA: Infinite As far as anyone can make out.
| |/ / \ \| | 2 IMPORTS: None It is impossible to import things into
\\_|\____/|_// an infinite area there being no outside
DON'T \_\\\/ PANIC to import things in from.
gberigan `-' unlinfo 3 EXPORTS: None See Imports.