[NA] Pronouncing computer acronyms

WRT .gif and Linux... Well, I don't really care how the creators pronounce it. Jif is peanut butter - And since it stands for "graphic interchange format" the rules of English would state that it is "GIF" not "JIF".

Same with "Linux". Torvalds is a foreigner - Linux is named after him, his name is "Linus," the proper pronunciation of which in the US of A is "Line-us" so I pronounce it "Line-ucks."

The only one I've heard for SATA is "Sat-uh". And I don't say anything to Earl. :no:

Most of the time, if there's a very easy and obvious pronunciation, it sticks and people know what you're talking about (which is the most important thing of all). Otherwise, spell it out.

Scuzzy.
Gif.
Antsy.
Gooey.
Dot Com.
Ask-e.
Buy-ohs.

U-R-L.
U-S-B.
A-2-D-P.
A-I-X.
A-T-M.
 
flyingcheesehead said:
The only one I've heard for SATA is "Sat-uh". And I don't say anything to Earl. :no:
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I think "say-tuh" for me is from my earlier years with the Sega video game systems. Every game said "Saayyyyyyy - Gaaaaaa" on boot up. Makes you wonder what linguistic quirks the next generation will have.
 
denverpilot said:
Y'all forgot the most abused one of all...

RADAR, which is an acronym and should always have all letters capitalized. IMHO. YMMV.

"RAdio Detection And Ranging..."
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How about AUDIO and VIDEO?

I'll charge $5 for defining those.
 
mikea said:
How about AUDIO and VIDEO?

I'll charge $5 for defining those.
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According the the Oxford dictionary, Audio as a word appeared in the 1930s, no origin as an acronym.

Video derived from the word audio, combined with the latin word videre or 'to see'.
 
denverpilot said:
Y'all forgot the most abused one of all...

RADAR, which is an acronym and should always have all letters capitalized. IMHO. YMMV.

"RAdio Detection And Ranging..."
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Well, technically it should be RaDAR
 
The thing about acronyms is each industry has its own and shouldn't be used unless they've been defined. Call it whatever you like but if it is an obscure meaning, or cryptic for the sake of being 31337, well that is just dumb.
Define it, use it.
Don't define it, don't use it.
(31337 - eleet - pseudo expert - a transmogrified word intended to obfuscate)
 
flyingcheesehead said:
WRT .gif and Linux... Well, I don't really care how the creators pronounce it. Jif is peanut butter - And since it stands for "graphic interchange format" the rules of English would state that it is "GIF" not "JIF".

Same with "Linux". Torvalds is a foreigner - Linux is named after him, his name is "Linus," the proper pronunciation of which in the US of A is "Line-us" so I pronounce it "Line-ucks."

The only one I've heard for SATA is "Sat-uh". And I don't say anything to Earl. :no:

Most of the time, if there's a very easy and obvious pronunciation, it sticks and people know what you're talking about (which is the most important thing of all). Otherwise, spell it out.

Scuzzy.
Gif.
Antsy.
Gooey.
Dot Com.
Ask-e.
Buy-ohs.

U-R-L.
U-S-B.
A-2-D-P.
A-I-X.
A-T-M.
Click to expand...

You forgot Epp-See-Dick, or are you too young for that?
 
While they're not acronyms, many of the UNIX commands or functions are abbreviations which lead to odd pronunciations. Some like "ls" or "rm" are too hard to pronounce and are just spelled out. Some have oddly nostalgic pronunciations. You'll catch an old timer pronoucing "cd" and CHA-DEER (because it used to be spelled chdir).

One of the original authors, Ken Thompson, when asked if he would do anything differently said he'd have put an "E" on the end of the "creat" call. Almost everybody pronounces that "CRE-AT" rather the CRE-ATE.

I had a friend who formed a company called INOTECH. He missed the fact that Innovate has two N's. I always referred to his company as EYE-NO-TEK.
 
gismo said:
You forgot Epp-See-Dick, or are you too young for that?
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Oh lord. Stop making me feel old.

I did once write out a file with some sensitive data that didn't really need encryption but also wasn't meant for the average person on the machine to read, in that.

Just 'cause I knew they would think it was just gibberish. ;)

I love that Wikipedia has the Zork reference listed, though. ;)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EBCDIC
 
Just remember JunioR is 11.

Old programmers are buried face down, nine edge first.
 
All of you are having a PEBCAK; (pron - 'peb-kahk'). Not to be confused with the infamous ID-10-T fault.
 
denverpilot said:
Oh lord. Stop making me feel old.

I did once write out a file with some sensitive data that didn't really need encryption but also wasn't meant for the average person on the machine to read, in that.

Just 'cause I knew they would think it was just gibberish. ;)
Click to expand...

No, we didn't use EBCDIC for that, we used ROT13 on Usenet!
 
gprellwitz said:
No, we didn't use EBCDIC for that, we used ROT13 on Usenet!
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I made 28 cases of Syrah at the Vint Hill Winery that was the site of a WWII code intercept. Doing some investigation we found the codes were just given names like ORANGE, BLUE, PURPLE. Great, our wine is called "CODE: PURPLE SYRAH." There's a "Matrix" style background on the label of seemingly random characters. In fact it's a ROT13 encrypted secret message (oddly enough, this has stumped some cryptography buffs at the museum my wife works in). When the winery sent some other labels into the TTB to be approved, they had VH in morse code on the label and the TTB made them decode it for them. With great trepidation I submitted my label, but it came back with routine approval without question.
 
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