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When first getting into the IT field I wasn't sure how to properly pronounce many words/terms such as daemon, SQL, etc. What are the terms people continue to hear mispronounced along with the correct pronunciation?

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I think what we learn from this is that if you don't want people to mispronounce your name, don't pick an idiotic name. OS X comes to mind as idiotic for this reason. – Daniel May 30 '09 at 18:38
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Questions like this should really be community wiki. It's not really a question anyone can give a definite answer to. – Lasse V. Karlsen May 30 '09 at 19:09
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@DanielStraight I don't get it? The pronunciation "OS ten" seems perfectly natural to me. I'd argue my point fully, but I'm in a rush atm (my friend Tiberius is giving me a lift to the coliseum in his chariot, and I'm late to meet him) – username May 30 '09 at 22:12
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From the Serverfault FAQ: "Avoid asking questions that are subjective, argumentative, or require extended discussion. This is not a discussion board, this is a place for questions that can be answered!" – Brian De Smet May 31 '09 at 5:40
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closed as off topic by Rob Moir, Shane Madden, Jason Berg, Iain♦, womble Sep 17 '11 at 21:21

Questions on Server Fault are expected to generally relate to servers, networking, or desktop infrastructure, within the scope defined in the faq.

56 Answers

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up vote 18 down vote

Mac OS X

It is correctly pronounced "Mac OS Ten," not "Mac O S X"

But don't take my word for it, open Terminal and ask your Mac:

say "Mac OS X"
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..but the X makes it sound cool – dbr Jun 28 '09 at 0:04
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does that mean i can pronounce vi as "six"? – Nick Kavadias Oct 6 '09 at 13:58
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up vote 15 down vote

Let's not forget the great GIF/"JIF" debate.

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up vote 13 down vote

ASPX - "ass picks"

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up vote 12 down vote

SUDO

Should be "su doo," not "su doh" - but when was the last time you met someone who pronounced it correctly?

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today ... but then I tought the guy .. and talking about 'dough' (money? bread, where's the context?), when I mean doing, never occured to me .. – lexu May 30 '09 at 17:59
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Pseudo make me a sandwich. – Joseph May 31 '09 at 16:31
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do by itself == "doo", at the end of words it's "doh" - creedo - libido - aikido - avocado - tuxedo – kdmurray May 31 '09 at 17:57
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It's "su do". Pronounce accordingly :) – Bill Weiss Oct 21 '09 at 18:38
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up vote 12 down vote

MySQL.

Should be "My S Q L" but commonly mispronounced "My sequel." I admit I actually prefer the latter.

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I like Sequel, it's easier to say - and really, it's more of a nickname. It's like saying "Jim" is an incorrect pronunciation of "James" The whole "correct" thing boils down to philosophy, as with spelling. It makes sense to me that if enough people use a pronunciation or spelling, it should be considered correct. At the end of the day, all dictionary editors eventually adopt misspellings... though it can take centuries in some instances. – username May 30 '09 at 19:17
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I have read in books that SQL - StructurEd QUEry Language (pronounced as 'sequel') ... so I guess its not a mispronounciation. – Rashmi Pandit May 31 '09 at 9:24
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up vote 12 down vote

I don't know how to pronounce router. English is my second language and most of the time I learn these terms from books, not from other people.

Should it be pronounced as rout-er or as root-er?

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Depends where you are. Probably the correct pronounciation in most english speaking palces is rooter. However in Australia the word root (pronounced as it is spelled) is slang for having sex, so we tend to say router. Most Americans and Brits I know look at me funny when I say router so I think most of them say rooter. – Jason Tan May 30 '09 at 18:26
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In the US it is rout-er. In the UK it is root-er. – g . May 30 '09 at 18:30
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It doesn't really matter. root-er is used in the UK and Canada while rout-er is used in the US and Austraila. See also en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Router – Albic May 30 '09 at 18:35
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up vote 11 down vote

To quote Linus Torvalds: "Hi, my name is Linus Torvalds and I pronounce Linux as "Linux""

I have to admit it works better when you hear it ;) It used to be a WAV file on every Linux kernel mirror!

[edit]

Now I can post links: http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/SillySounds/english.au

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up vote 9 down vote

C# is sometimes called C Pound.

(The correct pronunciation is C Sharp (C♯), Microsoft says so)

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Its also called C-Hash sometimes – Rashmi Pandit May 31 '09 at 9:28
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don't forget the (correct) c-octothorpe. pronounced Cock-tow-thorpe. :) – gbjbaanb May 31 '09 at 14:08
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up vote 8 down vote

TeX (should be pronounced 'tekh')

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up vote 8 down vote

Not really mispronounced, more like misinterpreted; the forward and backwards slash.

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up vote 7 down vote

McAfee (MAC-a-fee) not McAfee (Mc-AF-ee)

I still get this all the time...

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If it was MAC it would be spelled MacAfee, not McAfee. – Kibbee Jun 28 '09 at 0:15
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up vote 7 down vote

RSS -- arse

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I hate it when people forget about the existence of Atom feeds. – grawity May 31 '09 at 14:23
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up vote 7 down vote

According to RMS, most people say mispronounce the system as Linux instead of GNU/Linux. ;)

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up vote 6 down vote

SCSI

pronounced "skuzzy"

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I remember an ad where they were trying to convince people it was "sexy" not "scuzzy". – Brad Bruce May 31 '09 at 13:41
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It was apple that was trying to do that... – MikeJ Jun 2 '09 at 4:09
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up vote 6 down vote

I often see object-orientated instead of object-oriented on people's CVs.

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+1 made me laugh – Oskar Duveborn Jun 27 '09 at 22:12
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up vote 5 down vote

SQL originated as SEQUEL, but had the E/U dropped. I refer to it as SEQUEL rather than S-Q-L as it's quicker to say.

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Structured Query Language originated as "SEQUEL?" – kdmurray May 31 '09 at 18:09
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The original IBM project was named SEQUEL (Structured English QUEry Language). It was later renamed SQL I believe when the standardisation took place. – Lazlow Jun 1 '09 at 11:52
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en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SQL - third paragraph mentions the original name. – Lazlow Jun 28 '09 at 9:30
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To avoid the controversy, I call it 'Squeal'. The first SQL tool I release will be called 'SQL Like a Pig'. – Nerdfest Oct 9 '09 at 17:27
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up vote 4 down vote
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It stands for Graphics internetchange format, and Graphics has a hard G, So I think it should be pronounced with a hard G. I think this is one place where the creators actually pronounced it wrong. – Kibbee Jun 28 '09 at 0:17
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up vote 4 down vote

It's not exactly a mispronunciation but I hear people say HTTP protocol when the p in HTTP is protocol.

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up vote 3 down vote

Not exactly a computer term, but you just can't speak vendor Motherboards without mentioning:

ASUS

There's always been that great online debate whether it's "Ah-soos" or "A-soos". You can really call it what you want since most people know about the two version, and only hardcore pronunciation sticklers will try to 'correct' you by telling you the real pronunciation, which is:

"Ah-zoos"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asus

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Ay-suss. Never heard it pronounced any other way. – 20th Century Boy May 31 '09 at 0:59
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It's pronounced <asses>: youtube.com/watch?v=IjhbCYQketY – UnisoftDesign Jan 25 '11 at 23:59
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up vote 3 down vote

UNIX - pronounced: eunuchs ;)

(bummer, I can't seem to track down the Dilbert strip for this)

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up vote 3 down vote

I remember hearing someone pronouncing "MS Office" as "Ms. Office". Presumably as opposed to "Mr. Office"; I guess they took the term "product family" a little more literally than most...

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up vote 3 down vote

A lot boils down to the flavour of English. UK, US, Australian, etc.

Dah-tabase or Day-tabase? My Oz colleague bugged me with his "dah"...

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which gives me the excuse to link to Kraftwerk youtube.com/watch?v=EEBPzD3MPWE who sing "♬♩ dah tah base, dah tah base ♬♩" – username May 30 '09 at 17:56
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up vote 2 down vote

Linux! (should be Linix, as per the question about this already).

Adobe is often said wrongly too (should be Adobee).

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up vote 2 down vote

Another one of my favorites:

I was called by a recruiter asking if I knew anything about 'C-Hash'. I guess he didn't get the memo that it's 'C-sharp'!

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I am a fan of C-Octothorpe myself. – user6271 May 30 '09 at 20:04
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up vote 2 down vote

Tuple (′tü·pəl) is always mispronounced.

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Kudos for the IPA – Marcus Downing Jun 28 '09 at 0:06
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Y'know, posting stuff in IPA only works if the reader can read IPA... – RainyRat Oct 2 '09 at 19:25
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up vote 2 down vote

LaTeX (document markup language) - It's pronounced lay-tech, not laytex (like latex, the ever popular medical glove material)

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up vote 2 down vote

BIOS - BI-AHS (how Jeff Atwood says on the podcast) or BI-OHS . Bad phonetic translations, sorry.

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This one is definitely bye-oss. Maybe. – 20th Century Boy Jun 1 '09 at 6:01
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I go for the long 'O', since it's Basica Input/Output System, and I/O is always pronounced long-I, long-O – warren Oct 2 '09 at 7:00
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up vote 2 down vote

LAN is not pronounced as LAND. I hear this from people all the time..

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up vote 2 down vote

When Compaq were around I used to hear people call them "Compact". Drove me crazy. Where did the freakin' 't' come from?!

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Perhaps they did. – reinierpost Aug 18 '10 at 11:22
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up vote 2 down vote

A co-worker, circa 2004, referred to blog as "bee-log"

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