up vote 10 down vote favorite
3
share [g+] share [fb]

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?

link|improve this question
3  
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. – Instance Hunter May 30 '09 at 18:38
2  
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
12  
@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
1  
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
show 1 more comment
feedback

closed as off topic by DJ Pon3, 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

1 2
up vote 2 down vote

Cache, which should be pronounced "cash", but often ends up as "caysh".

link|improve this answer
1  
@Farseeker Sorry, but you're incorrect. Check Wikipedia en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cache, or Wiktionary en.wiktionary.org/wiki/cache. – Brian Willis Jun 27 '09 at 20:24
1  
in French, I believe it has an inflection over the 'e', so it's "cash-ay". But otherwise, it's "cash". – warren Oct 2 '09 at 7:03
show 3 more comments
feedback
up vote 2 down vote

I constantly have people asking me what Foxfire is, I then explain it is Firefox, and it is an Internet browser. Once I say Firefox, they do the "oh yeah" but 9 times out of 10 they say it wrong first.

link|improve this answer
show 1 more comment
feedback
up vote 2 down vote

My mom used to call URL "Earl". In fact she once asked me who was this Earl person everyone talked about.

link|improve this answer
feedback
up vote 1 down vote

Blog, a friend of mine just keeps saying it "Bee-Log", sounds quite entertaining. She also says telus, a dominate telecommunicate company in Vancouver, as "Tel-Us".

Cheers, Kent

link|improve this answer
1  
That's actually how to pronounce TELUS. How else could you pronounce it? – p.campbell May 30 '09 at 18:04
show 4 more comments
feedback
up vote 1 down vote

How about GNU. Silent G or no?

link|improve this answer
2  
It's "guh-noo." – mlambie May 31 '09 at 16:34
1  
Obviously you never watched The Great Space Coaster en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Space_Coaster youtube.com/watch?v=mAwVIZDAUF0 – Joe Holloway Jun 1 '09 at 6:27
feedback
up vote 1 down vote

Well, database was mentioned, but what about data? In Star Trek: The Next Generation, only one character pronounced it dah-tuh instead of day-tuh. Merriam-Webster Online says it can be pronounced three ways.

How often do you hear the word used as a "count noun" (like "coin"), with the singular "datum", instead of as a non-count noun (like "money"). It would seem that "Where are my data?" is more correct usage that has fallen out of style.

link|improve this answer
1  
In one episode, Data said to someone who pronounced his name dah-tah that while he was aware dah-tah was the correct pronunciation for a collection of ordered information, he preferred his name to be pronounced Date-ah. If the data are understood to be in a single collection, then I would say that using data with singular verbs can be correct. e.g. "The data says ..." – John Ferguson May 31 '09 at 15:29
show 1 more comment
feedback
up vote 1 down vote

The bunch of 16x16 icons next to the clock (in Windows taskbar) is often called systray. (According to Raymond Chen, it's "notification area", but nobody actually uses that.)

link|improve this answer
1  
that's because it's the "system tray".. several official docs from MS have called it that :) – warren Oct 2 '09 at 6:58
2  
Not a pronunciation issue anyway. – reinierpost Aug 18 '10 at 11:18
show 1 more comment
feedback
up vote 1 down vote

People who say "megabytes" when they really mean gigabytes.

link|improve this answer
3  
Someday your kids will tease you when you say "terabytes" instead of "petabytes" – gbarry Jun 27 '09 at 4:36
show 2 more comments
feedback
up vote 1 down vote

If you're in Hong Kong, everyone calls SanDisk (memory cards) ScanDisk. Why I don't know.

Softimage the 3D CGI software company now part of AutoDesk is not pronounced Soft Image but Soft-ta-marg. (marg like margarine)

link|improve this answer
feedback
up vote 1 down vote

Anyone remember the big debate ca. 1993 about how to pronounce "HTTP?"

  • Hot top
  • Hit top
  • Hot tip (like a URL is a "hot tip" for some good information)
  • Hat pee
  • Hat tip
  • etc...

What did we settle on, aych-tee-tee-pee?

link|improve this answer
show 2 more comments
feedback
up vote 1 down vote

My two are these. "NIC CARD" Really? You are installing a network interface card card? And then followed shortly by the confusion occuring between network engineers and server engineers about bits vs bytes. It really would have been better had those two terms not been so easily slurred.

link|improve this answer
2  
"Network Interface Controller card" is the full name, so "NIC card" is correct and the use of just "NIC" is a further abbreviation. As for bits and bytes, when abbreviated, bits should have a lower case b and bytes should have an upper case b. Where's the confusion? – John Gardeniers Oct 21 '09 at 19:12
feedback
up vote 1 down vote

I was going to say GIFF, but someone beat me to it. How about when someone wants Acrobat Reader (I prefer Foxit) installed on their machine and asks you to install 'Adobe'...that happens frequently in my neck of the woods.

link|improve this answer
1  
Not to mention Adobe these days have re-branded that product to Adobe Reader and completely dropped the Acrobat part from it... so these days it's just "Reader" I guess - fun stuff ^^ – Oskar Duveborn Jun 27 '09 at 22:07
feedback
up vote 0 down vote

Once in an interview for a DBA, I asked him if he knew SQL (pronounced seeqel). He said, I don't know much about seequl, but I know a lot about S-Q-L!

link|improve this answer
3  
I've seen CVs (resumes) with "Sequel" or "Sequal" for MS SQL Server DBA positions – gbn May 30 '09 at 17:40
3  
Actually, SQL can pronounced "ess-queue-el", and in fact it's the "official" pronunciation: databases.about.com/od/sql/a/sqlfundamentals.htm – Chris Jester-Young May 30 '09 at 18:59
show 1 more comment
feedback
up vote 0 down vote

SATA

Heard it as: Sa-Tuh and Say-Tuh

link|improve this answer
1  
I always use "sah-tuh", myself – warren Oct 2 '09 at 6:58
show 1 more comment
feedback
up vote 0 down vote

Remember DR-DOS? I had a colleague pronounce it Doctor Dos instead of dee-ar dos. Please don't say he was right.

link|improve this answer
4  
I've only heard "Doctor DOS." – mlambie May 31 '09 at 16:34
show 3 more comments
feedback
up vote 0 down vote

data - dahta or dayta

link|improve this answer
feedback
up vote 0 down vote

Novell SuSe Linux - pronounced SUE-zuh

link|improve this answer
show 1 more comment
feedback
up vote 0 down vote

Xenon [zi:non], but often people in Russia says [ksenon]

link|improve this answer
show 3 more comments
feedback
up vote 0 down vote

I still hear some people pronounce "/" as "backslash." As in "h-t-t-p-colon-backslash-backslash..."

Presumably, these people were poisoned by DOS in which the most commonly typed slash-like character was "\" and the less-commonly typed one was "/". Thus, the more common backslash became a slash and the one true slash became the backslash.

Just guessing, though.

link|improve this answer
1  
People who grew up with typewriters never saw a backslash in their life, and yet they still can't tell the difference. I mean they write that way, too. Like the cup is 1\2 full. – gbarry Oct 2 '09 at 7:18
3  
I've seen people actually type http:\\ – Stefan Wolff Oct 6 '09 at 14:50
feedback
up vote 0 down vote

My boss pronounces URL as the word "earl".

link|improve this answer
feedback
up vote 0 down vote

HPUX - pronounced "H Pucks" instead of "H.P.U.X."

link|improve this answer
feedback
up vote 0 down vote

I'm guilty of mispronouncing Ethernet.

Just a habit I got into and can't get out of, no matter how hard I try.

link|improve this answer
feedback
up vote 0 down vote

People calling the \ 'whack', as in: HTTP - colon - whack whack - google.com

link|improve this answer
show 2 more comments
feedback
up vote -3 down vote

In my opinion different pronunciation are not are not 'right' or 'wrong', they are just different.

It always helps to understand if one pronunciation dominates, but that doesn't make the others 'wrong'.

link|improve this answer
1  
official != right .. pot8o or pot@o? – lexu Oct 12 '09 at 12:26
show 2 more comments
feedback
1 2

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.