I’ve always pronounced the word “Southern” to rhyme with howthurn. I know most people say it like “suthurn” instead. I didn’t realize that the way I pronounce it is considered weird until recently!
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.ǝdoɹnƎ uᴉ ƃuᴉʌᴉl uɐᴉlɐɹʇsn∀ uɐ ɯɐ ᴉ ʇnq .ǝɯᴉʇ ǝɥʇ ll∀
Australia is so hellbent on making words sound cute by shortening everything. It makes me giggle even when they are mad.
The sprinkles on bread is adorable
Fairy bread is the best.
My wife has to be careful when picking child names because I will immediately Australianise it to something stupid.
I don’t personally do this, but many people in my family say the days of the week with “dee”. Like “Sundee”, “Mondee”. I think it’s charming, but one of their children said they were weird for saying it that way.
Also, as a programmer, there are some words that programmers use that are abbreviated which I refuse to pronounce the way that others pronounce them because I think it’s weird, but virtually everybody pronounces them different to me.
For example, there is a common keyword in programming languages called “enum”, and most people I know pronounce it as “EE-num”, like it rhymes with “ME dumb”. But “enum” is short for “enumeration”, so I pronounce it as if it’s the first two syllables of “enumeration”, like “ee-NUUM”. Although I think the normal pronunciation is weird, I don’t say anything to people. I just pronounce it the way that I think it should be pronounced. But on multiple occasions, other programmers have called me out for it and asked why I pronounce it “wrong”.
There are several other programming terms like this, but they don’t immediately come to mind. Enum is the most common example.
I sound out Wed-nes-day instead of saying Wends-day.
I hear most people say “library” and I do too, but I’ve met educated people who say “liberry.”
Gotta say it with respect for our Lord Wōden. Wōden’s day
Do you pronounce “char” like “care”?
I do, especially in VARCHAR as vare-care where everyone else is on the varr-carr train.
I typically pronounce “char” as “character”. Honestly, I rarely have any reason to talk specifically about chars, so it doesn’t come up often.
The next logical question is, then, why don’t I pronounce “enum” as “enumeration”? And the answer is that I often do. But I do say it both long and short.
Spoken language is about communication with the immediate group of people you’re interacting with, and is fluid, so while I agree with the idea you suggest of enum on an intellectual level (as well as several others), using the generally accepted way to pronounce things verbally reduces misinterpretation, so I pronounce things as they are generally pronounced. Spoken language is too ephemeral to be imprecise or use your own flair, IMHO. It’s a communication method that has shared rules, not a self-expression medium that is owned by you alone like what clothes you wear. There’s way more wrong with how the English language pronounces things than a few niche technical terms, but those weren’t decided by any one person. In fact that’s why it’s such a mess, but it’s functional.
Just my opinion from a sociological and practical standpoint. Probably contributing to that, I’m AuDHD and so misinterpretation is something I’ve struggled with my whole life. So precise communication is something I’ve spent a lot of time perfecting, especially at work. For reference, I’ve been a software product analyst, product manager, engineer, and currently architect as well as I used to run a nonprofit focused on ethics in the software industry, so I have had to do a lot of communicating ideas around software at many different levels for decades with both technical and nontechnical people.
sudois spokensoo-dooin my house. Where I live alone.I pronounce it the same as you, and by the way, that’s also the pronunciation listed on Wikipedia.
But I can’t remember how other people that I’ve worked with pronounce it. I’m sure it’s come up, but I just don’t recall.
I think the fact that its configuration file is called sudoers is fairly decisive that other pronunciations are wrong.
Over time I switched to saying it like you. It’s more internally consistent for me to pronounce all abbreviations the same as the words being abbreviated. That applies to enum, char, var, serde, num, regex, etc.
Reminds me of my highschool computers teacher who pronounced “modem” as “mo-deem”. Because it’s short for modulator/demodulator.
Continuing the programming vernacular, I was waiting to checkout at Best Buy in America like a month ago, and all the registers were empty forcing everyone to check out at customer service by the geek squad.
Someone came up behind me and asked if we were in the place to checkout. I replied, “Yes, this is the queue.”
Shortly after that, he had the same conversation with the person behind him and also used the word “queue” to which the third person asked if he was British, and the second guy just said he repeated what I said so I had to chime in and say I wasn’t British, just a programmer.
I don’t get it. Are there other pronunciations for queue?
Their story is more about the choice of words. In America, we typically call it a “line”. In England, it is typically called a “queue”.
It bugs me a bit when people treat acceptable synonyms as foreign just because it’s not the word or within the range of words they would’ve chosen.
I had something similar happen getting off a plane at London Heathrow. I asked airport staff where I could find the restrooms and they replied with a slightly confused look, “do you mean toilet?”
I thought the Brits used Loo? Toilet feels so crass lol
That’s exactly what I thought! I figured that if airport/airline staff there were paid as poorly as in the US (with modern cost of living considerations), maybe it’s more common than I thought at the time.
One I can’t stand is pronouncing regex as “rej-ecks.” I’ve also heard Redis pronounced “red-iss” which also sounds gross to me.
But that’s “regular expressions”, which shortened is rej-ecks. How else would you say it? “Rejects”?
Reggecks.
I think they mean the first syllable is pronounced “reg” like in “regular”, not “rej” like in “reject”. I’m in the rej camp personally. Saying reg is some gif jif shit that feels wrong
So you pronounce GIF as “jiff?” That sounds totally more wrong to me. It’s “graphics” not “jraphics.”
That’s what they want you to think so they can keep all the giraffe gifs to themselves.
Oh sorry I can see how you would take it that way in the context. No I pronounce it like everyone else did before the creator decided it was JIF, which feels wrong to me. I meant that sentiment is how I feel about saying “reg ecks”
It’s the dumb thing about English where g can be like Gremline or like Giraffe. So hard g. The redis one I don’t get through text, though .
Edit: should’ve refreshed before posting since this was already answered (I opened this tab last night)
“reg-ecks” with a g sound as in “get”, after all that is how “regular” is pronounced
Fortunately, although “rej-ecks” is common, so is the correct pronunciation.
As for “red-iss”, I think that may be a losing battle. Wikipedia even lists that as the correct pronunciation. I think the rules start to fall apart when it is a project name, and when it smooshes together multiple words.
I don’t personally do this, but many people in my family say the days of the week with “dee”. Like “Sundee”, “Mondee”. I think it’s charming, but one of their children said they were weird for saying it that way.
My first English teacher in Germany taught us this way as well. She was horrible. Calling kids stupid and such.
One of my biggest pet peeves in programming, hell even language in general, is when people sound out abbreviations. Like they say url instead of U.R.L. Or sequel instead of S.Q.L. Or in Star Wars when they say at at instead of AT-AT. The funniest one is smück for CMYK.
I knew somebody (not a programmer) who pronounced HTML as “hotmail”. I normally let people pronounce things however they want, but I had to beg her to pronounce it differently because I simply couldn’t deal with it pronounced like that.
I think “hotmail” (the email service) is actually called that after HTML.
How old were they? Because this (top left) may be the reason…
I signed up for a Hotmail account in 1997. I told my mom and she freaked out. She heard hot-male.
“I’m very skilled at C pound”
Still better than “C hashtag”.
I’m a purist. It’s “C octothorpe”
You win. All the upvotes.
I like saying mumorperger for MMORPG because Yahtzee Croshaw said it that way in one of his review videos once.
Oh, yeah, that one is also on my whitelist.
And Laser.
Url and at-at are solidly initialisms. SQL has a solid enough argument for being an acronym that I’ll accept either.
What about FAQ?
Most everyone I know says F.A.Q. But I like saying ‘fack’, as in it’s the page where you find the facts.
I’ve never met anyone in tech who’s pronounced it any way other than “sequel”, and some of those folks were DB admins since the 80’s.
A lot of our interns and fresh-from-school say S.Q.L. but everyone else is calling it sequel. Usually after a few years even the youth start calling it sequel, in my experience.
It’s hard to say MS S.Q.L. Server, at least in comparison to MS Sequel Server
What I have a hard time with is when they just call it “sequel server”. Obviously, I understand what they mean, but it seems so nonspecific.
Or sequel instead of S.Q.L.
Squeal.
I had a specific experience where I couldn’t understand a client request the first time around because they kept talking about some guy named Earl.
I can’t really express how jarring that pronunciation is - you just need to genuinely experience it sometime without warning to truly grok the oddness.
“ee-NUUM” seems like it would roll of the tongue easier than the latter and that’s the way I would say it too because of what it’s short for, so I get it!
Not me, but I know a bondage instructor who pronounces “bondage” like you would in French.
I think if you’re teaching something you should know the pronunciations. Didn’t take long to find other stuff wrong with him. My wife and I quickly left and sought our education elsewhere.
This makes me think of the State Farm commercial showing football players in a ballet class. “Boon-dlay…sah-vey…”
Garage.
GraJ
Catch shit for it all the time, but at this point I think it’s more like a harmless Easter egg.
My grandma rolls the R in “Three”, and it’s become a game to get her to say it. She handles it with great humor.
I’m cool to have my own version of that.
Always just call it a car hole.
You’d feel at home in Ontario.
- Toronto: Tronnah
- Grocery: grosheree
Team grosheree 4 lyf
Anyone who says gro-suh-ree can fuck right off back to whatever prep posh school for fancy people they came from
Anyone using 3 syllables may as well be the queen of England.
Grow-shree
Ever since that IT Crowd episode I can’t not pronounce pedestal as “pedal stool”.
You know the famous mage from Forgotten Realms? I pronounce their name “EL-ah-min-ster”
Oh, I also have a terrible Boston accent so I nearly caused an HR incident when talking about “hooked horrors” aka “hookt ho-ahs” or as my coworker heard “hooked whores”. Horror is the best word to check for a Boston accent with.
What? Why? There’s not even an A in Elminster.
“jaws” is an equivalent of that for a metro NY accent. i could never hear my own accent until someone had me say it and really listen for it. now if you’ll excuse me i need to walk my dawg to the cawfee shop
“Horror” and “Water.”
(“Hor-er” and “woo-tur”)
Yeah I’m from NJ and same, but more like wooder.
Also orange = oar-inge
Florida = floor-duhAnd of course glottal stops everywhere:
kitten = kih’-in
Trenton = chre’-inBut that is how horror is pronounced…
Every time I say it, someone comes back with “You mean haw-rur!?” Now I’m starting to think it’s just my area. 😅
Could use some international phonetic alphabet up in here.
To try to be a little clearer, the beginning of the word is typically pronounced like “whore”. Whore-er.
Hahr-er is not uncommon, either. Probably regional.
As an American, it didn’t click for me until I visited London for the first time why names like Leicester and Gloucester were pronounced the way they are by Brits. My dumb American brain sees the names as Lei-cester and Glou-cester rather than Leice-ster and Glouce-ster.
oh wow, you blew my mind
Was on holiday in Scotland with my father. And bless this girl at the tourist information who realised that when we stupid Germans said “glennis law” that we meant Glenisla (glen ila).
Wow, I’m certain I would’ve done the same. Think I’d make myself a cheat sheet for Scotland and Wales when I get around to visit. Knowing that Cymru is pronounced “com-ree” gave me anxiety about butchering names there if ever I’ll need to ask for directions.
We’ll usually understand if you get it wrong. There’s a lot of extremely counterintuitive ones. If you’re American, the most likely trap is Edinburgh - it’s not EE-den-berg, it’s EDD-in-buh-ruh or EDD-im-bruh.
I’ll also just have to ask that the same grace is returned when I inevitably fuck up basically any place name based on anything Native American, because I don’t know how any of those languages work
I went to school and now live outside Pittsburgh and it’s such a mishmash of Native American place names (Monongahela, Allegheny, Youghagheny; which is Ma-nahn-guh-hey-la, Al-uh-gain-ee, and yaack-uh-gain-ee), French (Duquesne, Versailles; Doo-cain, Ver-sales), and English. Combine that with the Pittsburghese dialect and then mash that with not pronouncing foreign words anything like how they natively would be (but only sometimes) and it’ll make your head spin.
Unfortunately our linguistic history is a huge tangle and there are few safe assumptions. Depending on where you are in Scotland, the places names might derive from Gaelic, Pictish, Welsh, Norse, or English, and then they probably got Anglicised at some point but it could have happened at basically time within the last five centuries. A substantial number of the non-Gaelic ones are doubly messed up because they got Gaelicised first and then the Gaelicisation got Anglicised. Glenisla is a good example - glen derives from Gaelic, and nobody is sure where isla comes from.
Still, Glenisla is a lovely area! Lots of good hikes there. I hope you had a good time.
It was awesome. Best vacation ever. We went to Glenisla for their comparatively small highland games. They had dancing competitions, bag pipe competitions and of course various sport competitions. Apparently one of the competitors was the reigning shot putting or hammer throwing or so world champion. Every time he threw something the judges went back extra far and still he managed to go beyond the field. He was huge. My father and I dubbed him Monster.
Solder. I taught myself, never really talked to anyone about it, and for like a decade, I pronounced it like it’s spelled. With an L.
I just can’t break the habit
If it makes you feel any better, that’s the correct pronunciation in England.
Thats the correct pronunciation outside of the USA.
My aunt does the same with ‘salmon’.
Living in Los Angeles as a white person, I refuse to pronounce street and city names that are Spanish the English-speaking way. Knowing Spanish since I was a kid from school and using it on a daily basis, my brain simply doesn’t butcher the pronunciation by default.
It’s caused confusion though for sure. I used to live near a street called La Tijera, but Americans pronounced it almost like Spanish “la tierra” which is a completely different word, and I couldn’t figure out where this street was that everyone was talking about.
There was a street in the town I grew up in that everyone called “Awkwee-estahh” . It was Aqui Esta, which is a cute street name, but if you pronounced it correctly no one knew what you were talking about lol
That is a hilarious street name, omg
Does that translate to It’s Here Street??
Yeah, something like “it’s here” or “here it is.” With the proper accents the phrase is “aquí está.”
Houston, Texas has a street called Kuykendahl (or something similar). People kept mentioning this ‘kirkendall’ street and I could never find it.
But that’s one where they’re leaning much closer to the Dutch pronunciation
Maybe there’s some vestige there but I asked upwards of 20 people and no one could explain it. Texas did historically have german-speaking communities and even cities, but I wasn’t aware of any Dutch nor had I heard anyone mention it. It’s interesting?
So, do you call it “Loss Anjeless” or “Lōs On-hay-lays?”
Low’ En’hee-lews
Loss An-hell-ess.
I pronounce the Texas Houston the same as the. NYC street
I don’t know enough about New York or football to understand this.
Texas: like the name Hugh (hyuu)
NYC: like House (how)
The -ston bit doesn’t change.
US American. I’ve lived overseas a long time and pronounce the ‘h’ in ‘herbs’ because, as Eddie Izzard once said, “it’s got a fucking ‘h’ in it”. I don’t know when I switched but my mom laughed at me when we had a call recently.
One I only noticed a couple years ago: turmeric (was saying, and still frequently hear) ‘toomeric’.
Do you also pronounce the ‘h’ in hour and honor?
Hno. I do say ‘historical’ rather than ‘istorical’, but that’s the only one I can think of in the global English-speaking world that has any number of adherants off the top of my head.
Those two examples have an “o” after the “h”. Are there any other words starting “he” that Americans treat the “h” as silent?
I lived in Philly for years and never noticed the way people say “erbs” but since returning to Australia I hear it constantly.
Edit: I hear Americans say it constantly. No one in Australia says “erb”.
Yeah you’ve been away a while, we say 'oagies now.
Heir
Also anything starting with hema-, like hematology or hematoma… though that might be because of the æ.
The mountain range on the eastern side of the U.S. is the ‘apple-at’chans’. At least nearly everyone from the southern end of them say it that way (source: I’m from there).
‘Apple-ay-shuns’ is just as strange as saying ‘Nor-folk’. Immediate indicator of you’re an outsider.
How do you pronounce Norfolk?
Ok, at least the Virginia version is ‘Nor-fuck’. And some long time residents say ‘Naw-fuck’.
Huh.
I’m from the PNW and I’ve always pronounced it Apple-Ah-Shuns.
For Norfolk… I’d basically pronounce that as Nor-Fuck.
Yeah, I’m saying a whole lot of people say it with a “shun” at the end. I blame the media and people originally trying to differentiate themselves from a perception of being an ignorant hillbilly. The hillbilly prejudice is much better now, but I was still personally encountering it even in the aughts. And the pronunciation has stuck because "that’s the way you’ve always heard it said. "
Everyone who lives in those hills (with the exception of a few pockets of yankees) says it “at-chan”.
Tet-nus
Assuming you’re referring to bacterial infection, is that not exactly how you’re supposed to say it?
I always thought, growing up, the disease was called “tech’niss” and it took me years to connect it to Tetanus (tet-en-es) infection. I felt dumb. Phonetics are hard.
