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posted by Fnord666 on Monday May 18 2020, @01:32AM   Printer-friendly
from the just-like-it-sounds dept.

From iOS to SQL: The world's most incorrectly pronounced tech terms:

A lot of people pronounce common tech terms wrong, from iOS to SQL to Qi. It's understandable: Some of the proper or official pronunciations of these terms are counterintuitive at best. Still, we think it's time to clear the air on a few of them.

To that end, we're starting a discussion and inviting you to share your examples with us. Next week, we'll look into a bunch of them and publish a pronunciation guide.

[...] Below are a handful that have come up within the Ars [Technica] staff. Again, dear readers, feel free to discuss and debate, and to introduce some others of your own. For some of these and other terms suggested, we'll follow up with an article making the case for some correct (or, at least official) pronunciations versus incorrect ones, sourced as best as we can.

  • [...]iOS and beOS
  • [...]OS X and iPhone X
  • [...]SQL and MySQL
  • [...]Linux
  • [...]Qi
  • [...]Huawei

Original Submission

 
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  • (Score: 2) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Monday May 18 2020, @02:03AM (15 children)

    by Rosco P. Coltrane (4757) on Monday May 18 2020, @02:03AM (#995572)

    They're either acronyms that are so annoying to pronounce people quickly came up with an easy shortcut that stuck (sequel, scuzzy...) or stuff that was just made up from the get-go by whatever marketdroid came up with the name (chi). You can pronounce Ess Queue El if you so wish. It just marks you as "one who doesn't know the name" guy in the technical meeting room, with the hipsters in the know quietly pitying your ignorance.

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 18 2020, @02:17AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 18 2020, @02:17AM (#995578)

    Actually, I wear my ignorance of SQL as a badge of honor.

  • (Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 18 2020, @02:25AM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 18 2020, @02:25AM (#995580)

    The language was originally named "SEQUEL" for Structured English Query Language. Alas, that name was already taken, so they had to change it. Thus, renamed to SQL, pronounced "SEQUEL."

    Now you know.

    :-D

    • (Score: 2) by Dr Spin on Monday May 18 2020, @10:20AM

      by Dr Spin (5239) on Monday May 18 2020, @10:20AM (#995666)

      No. Sequel was a previous language, similar in concept but over ambitions in its
      attempts to be English-like (for 1963) and was replaced by SQL - a completely different, less ambitions
      and more realistic project, after people discovered parsing English was more difficult than parsing COBOL.

      --
      Warning: Opening your mouth may invalidate your brain!
  • (Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Monday May 18 2020, @02:43AM

    by hendrikboom (1125) Subscriber Badge on Monday May 18 2020, @02:43AM (#995589) Homepage Journal

    the name (chi)

    Isn't that the name of a persocon in Chobits? Pronounced like the beginning of the word cheese?

  • (Score: 2) by Arik on Monday May 18 2020, @03:40AM (4 children)

    by Arik (4543) on Monday May 18 2020, @03:40AM (#995600) Journal
    "or stuff that was just made up from the get-go by whatever marketdroid came up with the name (chi)."

    That's the one you're wrong on. Qi is the pinyin spelling of the Chinese word for breath. Before pinyin, it was usually spelled ch'i. In addition to meditation and martial arts, the word should be familiar to many from the game Wei qi, more often known in the western world by it's Japanese name, Go.

    So no marketdroid made that one up. They just misappropriated it.
    --
    If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
    • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 18 2020, @06:00AM (3 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 18 2020, @06:00AM (#995626)

      In addition to meditation and martial arts, the word should be familiar to many from the game Wei qi

      Uh, no. The former is 氣, qì, and means breath, pneuma etc. 棋, qí, is a chess type game (圍棋 == surround chess, go).

      • (Score: 2) by Arik on Monday May 18 2020, @11:32AM (1 child)

        by Arik (4543) on Monday May 18 2020, @11:32AM (#995692) Journal
        Well done noticing the tones.

        But I'm not unaware of the tones, I was just trying to avoid making my post unnecessarily long and confusing for those who don't really want a full lesson on mandarin. And despite knowing the tones, you seem to have missed my point, perhaps because you don't know the game.

        In the game weiqi (qi here is rising tone, meaning game) one of the fundamental concepts is qi (and here it's falling tone, meaning breath.)

        Each stone, or group of stones, must have at least one breath available at all times. Should the last available breath be lost, then the stone or group of stones are removed from play. A group of stones may have an /internal/ breath hole, which makes it more difficult to attack, or it may even reach the point of having /two/ internal breath holes, in which case it is invulnerable to attack.
        --
        If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
        • (Score: 3, Touché) by Phoenix666 on Monday May 18 2020, @01:19PM

          by Phoenix666 (552) on Monday May 18 2020, @01:19PM (#995737) Journal

          You're both so, so wrong. Qi means "weird," as in 奇怪, which is clearly an ancient Chinese reference to Arik's choice of typeface.

          --
          Washington DC delenda est.
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 18 2020, @08:01PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 18 2020, @08:01PM (#995985)

        whoever said "chinese chars" are picto grams originally is talking shit.
        no one making up pictograms with a mediocre sense of logic would not consider a "magical fire embodied into life" pictogram to not have a circle in the middle.
        maybe, just maybe, it's just phony and the pictogram creator knew it all along and the REAL pictogram revolves around ... $

  • (Score: 3, Funny) by canopic jug on Monday May 18 2020, @05:02AM (3 children)

    by canopic jug (3949) Subscriber Badge on Monday May 18 2020, @05:02AM (#995617) Journal

    I've only every heard posers and microsofters call it "sequel". But what would they be doing near a technical meeting?

    --
    Money is not free speech. Elections should not be auctions.
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 18 2020, @05:53AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 18 2020, @05:53AM (#995622)

      Glad to know that both Donald Chamberlin and Raymond Boyce are considered a posers and Microsofters.

    • (Score: 5, Informative) by coolgopher on Monday May 18 2020, @05:56AM (1 child)

      by coolgopher (1157) on Monday May 18 2020, @05:56AM (#995624)

      My main objection against pronouncing SQL "sequel" is that that was in fact the predecessor to SQL. SQL = Structured Query Language. SEQUEL = Structured English QUEry Language. If you're in fact referring to the IBM version from 1974 then by all means call it "sequel", but for those of us who don't want to be dragged into legacy support, "ess cue ell" keeps it clear.

      • (Score: 2, Disagree) by Grishnakh on Monday May 18 2020, @11:10PM

        by Grishnakh (2831) on Monday May 18 2020, @11:10PM (#996069)

        You've got to be kidding. The reality is that 99% of people who actually use SQL *today* call it "sequel", and almost none of them remember some long-dead predecessor from the 1960s or early 70s, nor were most of them even alive then. There's no "legacy support" for this thing just like there's no legacy support now for MULTICS, so its existence is utterly irrelevant except as a historical curiosity, just like the existence of SCO Unix and Coherent Unix.

  • (Score: 2) by shortscreen on Monday May 18 2020, @06:07AM (1 child)

    by shortscreen (2252) on Monday May 18 2020, @06:07AM (#995629) Journal

    My prefered method for solving these mysteries (when available) is to check the kana [wikipedia.org]. Es kyuu eru. Settled.

    How about that thing that directs the packets this way and that? Ruutaa [wikipedia.org]

    Although sometimes there is a term which is so bad in every possible way that nobody can make sense of it and one has to take matters into one's own hands. I decided long ago that I would refer to this [wikipedia.org] simply as "duh."

    • (Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Monday May 18 2020, @01:22PM

      by Phoenix666 (552) on Monday May 18 2020, @01:22PM (#995738) Journal

      Shortscreen, what you say is the road to madness. It would lead to you pronounce the word, "Makudonarudozu," instead of the proper, the sensible, "Mickey-D's."

      --
      Washington DC delenda est.