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How to pronounce Knuth in English?

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Ken Murase

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Dec 2, 1993, 6:07:07 AM12/2/93
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In Japan, the K of Knuth (Donald E. Knuth, the TeX's inventor) is pronounced
like "coo - nooth". But I donlt think K is pronounced. Do you know how
Mr. Knuth is called?

Ken Murase
Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences,
The University of Tokyo
f31...@secc.ecc.u-tokyo.ac.jp

Georg Wittig

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Dec 6, 1993, 9:14:35 AM12/6/93
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f31...@secc.ecc.u-tokyo.ac.jp (Ken Murase) writes:

» In Japan, the K of Knuth (Donald E. Knuth, the TeX's inventor) is pronounced


» like "coo - nooth". But I donlt think K is pronounced. Do you know how
» Mr. Knuth is called?

A collleague of mine visited Prof. Knuth 10 years ago, and he asked
him how to pronounce his name. Prof. Knuth answered,

- either pronounce it as k-nuth
- or as nuth (ala ``to know'', i.e. without the k)
--
Georg Wittig, GMD-I8.IT email: Georg....@gmd.de
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Research is about making new mistakes, not repeating old ones.
(N. Maclaren)

G.J. McCaughan

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Dec 6, 1993, 10:46:43 AM12/6/93
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In article <F31065.93...@eccb03-s.secc.ecc.u-tokyo.ac.jp> f31...@secc.ecc.u-tokyo.ac.jp (Ken Murase) writes:

> In Japan, the K of Knuth (Donald E. Knuth, the TeX's inventor) is pronounced
> like "coo - nooth". But I donlt think K is pronounced. Do you know how
> Mr. Knuth is called?

Well, I always pronounce the "K" like the "X" in "TeX", but that's just
for fun ...

--
Gareth McCaughan Dept. of Pure Mathematics & Mathematical Statistics,
gj...@cus.cam.ac.uk Cambridge University, England. [Research student]

Muhammad Masroor Ali

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Dec 6, 1993, 7:30:48 PM12/6/93
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This topic was discussed to death some days ago. I saved the final
article, and posting it here.

<BEGIN>

Newsgroups: comp.text.tex
From: tri...@curie.uchicago.edu (Anil Trivedi)
Subject: Pronouncing "Knuth": A Clarification from Stanford
Keywords: Knuth
Organization: Enrico Fermi Institute, University of Chicago
Date: Sat, 11 Sep 1993 08:57:37 GMT

I am extremely grateful to Brian Roberts of Stanford who most
kindly responded to me with this clarification:

-----------------------------------------------------------------
When DEK says his surname, he says, "Kuh-nooth"; "nooth" rhymes
with "tooth" and that's where the stress is, though not strongly.
-----------------------------------------------------------------

Well, that ought to be enough.

Regards all,

Anil Trivedi
============


<END>


Masroor
--

_____________________________________________________________

Zymurgy's Law of Volunteer Labor:
People are always available for work in the past tense.
_____________________________________________________________

mas...@human.ai.kyushu-u.ac.jp (Muhammad Masroor Ali)
Department of Computer Science and Communication Engineering
Faculty of Engineering, Kyushu University
Fukuoka, 812 JAPAN

DON HOSEK

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Dec 7, 1993, 2:24:42 AM12/7/93
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It's spelled "Knuth", but it's pronounced "Throat-warbler-mangrove".

-dh

--
Don Hosek "The Only Solution is Love"
Quixote Digital Typography -Dorothy Day
909-621-1291
FAX: 909-625-1342

Robin Fairbairns

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Dec 7, 1993, 5:31:24 AM12/7/93
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In article <1993Dec7...@pitvax.claremont.edu>, dho...@pitvax.claremont.edu (DON HOSEK) writes:
|> It's spelled "Knuth", but it's pronounced "Throat-warbler-mangrove".

Which only goes to prove my common assertion that American phonetic
spelling is incomprehensible to anyone educated elsewhere...
--
Robin (Campaign for Real Radio 3) Fairbairns r...@cl.cam.ac.uk
U of Cambridge Computer Lab, Pembroke St, Cambridge CB2 3QG, UK

dakn...@gmail.com

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May 6, 2020, 9:01:38 AM5/6/20
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As an individual who is also cursed with constantly correcting people on our last name's pronunciation, it most certainly is Kuh-Nooth.

Athel Cornish-Bowden

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May 6, 2020, 1:27:53 PM5/6/20
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I hope Ken Murase is glad to get an answer after worrying about this
for more than 26 years. But does it matter? About 50% of people
pronounce the Bow in my last name to rhyme with "row" and 50% to rhyme
with "row" (that is deliberately obscure, but may be better to give
"low" and "how" as examples). I answer to both and never correct people
unless they specifically ask. (The correct answer is that it rhymes
with "row".) If I were a Perl enthusiast (but I'm not) I'd say that
"There's more than one way to do it".


--
athel

Donald Arseneau

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Jun 26, 2020, 8:35:49 PM6/26/20
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Athel Cornish-Bowden <acor...@imm.cnrs.fr> writes:

> On 2020-05-06 13:01:27 +0000, dakn...@gmail.com said:
>
>> On Thursday, December 2, 1993 at 6:07:07 AM UTC-5, Ken Murase wrote:
>>> In Japan, the K of Knuth (Donald E. Knuth, the TeX's inventor) is pronounced
>>> like "coo - nooth". But I donlt think K is pronounced. Do you know how
>>> Mr. Knuth is called?
>>
>> As an individual who is also cursed with constantly correcting people on
>> our last name's pronunciation, it most certainly is Kuh-Nooth.
>
> I hope Ken Murase is glad to get an answer after worrying about this for more
> than 26 years. But does it matter? About 50% of people pronounce the Bow in
> my last name to rhyme with "row" and 50% to rhyme with "row"

Say what???

> (that is deliberately obscure, but may be better to give "low" and "how" as

Ah! Ha ha! It is funny, which is a rare joke that is funny when
explained.

Anyway, it doesn't matter how other Knuths pronounce their name, so I
will direct anyone interested to

https://www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/~knuth/faq.html

(It's the same as DAK above.)

--
Donald Arseneau as...@triumf.ca
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