• bigmclargehuge@lemmy.world
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    5 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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      5 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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        5 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.

  • thehatfox@lemmy.world
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    5 months ago

    What is with Linux projects and confusingly pronounceable names? Even the name “Linux” itself has a fair bit of spoken variation.

    Then there’s Ubuntu, and GNOME with the hard G to name a few.

    • LeFantome@programming.dev
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      5 months ago

      Linux variation is simply because it was named after a Finnish person but became mainstream in parts of the world that pronounce those letters differently.

      There are recordings from the early days where Linus clearly says “I say Linux as LEE-nuhks”. That is consistent with how you say his name in Finland. So, some people seize on that.

      More recently, Linus has said that his name is pronounced differently in different languages but that “Linux is always lin-nuhks”.

      Based on that, I thinks his latter guidance is correct. It is also basically the way most people in North America say it by default in my experience. This makes sense as Linus now lives in the US.

      Ubuntu is an actual African ( Zulu ) word. It has a proper pronunciation.

    • maynarkh@feddit.nl
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      5 months ago

      I guess Linux projects tend to come from around the world, instead of US boardrooms and marketing desks.

      Linux is Finnish, SUSE is German, so is KDE, Ubuntu is South African, GNOME is Mexican (?).

  • warmaster@lemmy.world
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    5 months ago

    OpenZooZah TumbleWeedah

    Seriously though, unpopular opinion disclaimer, I think I may be only one that didn’t find it funny at all, just an informative, overly long, cringey Tenacious D reinterpretation ?