• bigmclargehuge@lemmy.world
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    7 months ago

    I have a rule about acronyms: if the spelling makes sense to be said as a word, I follow the English grammatical rules. A word that’s spelled s-u-s-e would be pronounced “soos”, so that’s what I say.

    This is why I don’t pronounce GNU as “ga-noo”, it doesn’t make sense as a word. In those cases, I just spell them out.

    • guy@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      So what’s the deal with GNU? When I first saw it, I was sure the G was silent, or formed a dipthong, like gnat or gnocchi or gnaw or gnarly or gnome or just any word starting with gn in English. But IRL, I’ve only heard it pronounced with a hard G, same with Gnome.

      • bigmclargehuge@lemmy.world
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        7 months ago

        Well thats the thing, generally if I see an acronym and have to ask myself how it would be pronounced as a word, by my rule I just spell it out.

        For a great example of this (unrelated to FOSS), look at LGBTQIA+. Even though it’s a mouthful to say each letter individually, no one wrestles it into “Leguhbuht’kwia plus”, it just doesn’t make sense and saying it that way would probably ellicit a dead stare from whoever heard it. Unless it’s painfully simple to morph into a word or single syllable, I don’t bother.

        I’m not trying to say this is the right way, mind you. It’s just the way that makes the most sense to me.