Re: pronounciation query

[Shaun McCance <shaunm gnome org>]

On Wed, 2004-12-15 at 17:59 +0000, Telsa Gwynne wrote:
> On Wed, Dec 15, 2004 at 06:33:50PM +0530 or thereabouts, Jinesh.P.G wrote:
> > hai,
> >    I am creating some audio scripts for linux commands. May I know how to
> > pronounce the commands listed below.
> 
> This will undoubtedly vary across the English-speaking world, and
> I have no idea at all for the non-English-speaking areas. 

I've worked tech support where I've had to communicate with command line
users over the phone.  If there's anything I can say for sure, it's that
there is no standard pronunciation of any of this.

> > How to pronounce the -R. Wheter - should be pronounced as minus or hyphen.
> 
> For "-", I say "minus" or "dash". It isn't a dash really, but I saw it.

I always say "dash", and so do my friends.  I know it's not a dash, but
"dash" is monosyllabic, and is therefore the winner in my book.  I've
heard people say "hyphen" and "minus" and even "slash" (seriously).

> > cdrecord
> 
> This records CDs, so I say "CD record", with the emphasis on the cord to
> show that it's the verb and not the noun.

That's how I say it, and I don't think I've heard it pronounced any
other way.

> > mkisofs -R
> 
> This makes an iso filesystem, and I say "muck" for most of the 
> "mk-something" commands. So "muck eye so eff ss" and so 
> "muck eye so eff ess space minus capital arr"

Oh, I'd never heard anybody say "much" for "mk" commands.  Must be one
of those weird over-the-pond things. ;-)  I usually just pronounce "mk"
as "make".

As for pronouncing the space, this is somewhere where you have to guage
the command line familiarity of your audience.  I wouldn't pronounce it
when talking to Linux-adept friends.  I'd just say "make-ey-so-eff-ess
dash capital arr".  A small amount of pause between words, together with
the common form of commands (dash something, etc.) is typically enough
for people to understand.  Similarly, I often don't pronounce the slash
in a pathname, if I know my listener is following.

But, this doesn't work for a general audience.  I've been on the phone
with plenty of people that would be confused if I didn't pronounce all
the spaces and slashes.  But then, I've been on the phone with people
who would get annoyed if I did.

> If I were telling someone down the phone and was not -completely-
> sure they understood, I would do it character by character, and for
> anything living in /sbin and /usr/sbin, I would read that out character
> by character including the full path, too!

Again, for people who don't know the command line, spelling out these
cryptic directory names is essential.  With people who do, it's common
to say "user", "bin", "ess bin", and "et see".

> Really, there is no standard. I have heard
> 
> "see aitch mod"
> "shuh mod"
> "chuh mod"
> ..all for chmod

Oh, "shuh mod" is new to me.  I've heard "change mod", and it confused
the hell out of me, even though it's what it means.

> And I look at "twm" and think it is obviously and clearly one syllable,
> pronounced somewhere between "tum" and "toom" (to rhyme with "cwm"!)
> Which I do not think is quite so obvious or clear to everyone. 

Cute!  I've been saying "tee double-you emm" all these years.

> I am not sure what an audio script is, but I think it will be very
> hard to get right.

I think it'll be about impossible to get it perfect for everybody.  How
much you spell things out depends entirely on your audience.  Jinesh,
you're really just going to have to make some judgement calls on this.


But hey, since we have a pronunciation thread going, how about dropping
that obnoxious "guh" from the pronunciation of Gnome (note the superior
capitalization as well).  There's this bar in town called Nargyle, but
it's pronounced "nar jhee lay", where the "jh" is the soft "j" sound,
often found in French words.  They're pretentious enough to have some
weird pronunciation, but not intelligent enough to put an accent or two
on their characters to let me know they're pretentious.

Nobody is going to look at "Gnome" and say "guh-nome", unless they've
been told to do so.  And whenever I correct somebody (which is rare), I
feel like I'm asking them to be dumber.

--
Shaun