I found there is this "pride in the correct pronunciation" in the opensource community. It seems to be a signal of a group membership and a creed validator.
Who cares though? Why does "correct pronunciation" matter? Linux is nowadays used by many more non-native English speakers who will pronounce it very differently.
This attempt at correcting others seems like gatekeeping and, to me personally, feels like a very anti-inclusive thing to do.
Tangentially, the fact that some of the pronunciation is so non-intuitive (e.g. /etc -> etsy) should be a bug, not a feature and pride point. Can you imagine if you reported that a workflow is non-intuitive in a piece of SW and the devs told you "we know, cool, right?!"
It is for the same reason that anyone ever nudges anyone else about pronunciation, spelling, or grammar: speed of communication.
If you pronounce "/etc" as "et cetera", then it will add a step in me parsing your speech ("Oh, he means 'etsy'").
Second, now I have an awkward decision to make when speaking back to you. Do I adapt my pronunciation to yours for the length of this conversation? Or do I pronounce it my way, causing the extra step in your translation of my speech, then also causing you to wonder why I am saying it differently, furthermore causing you to consider whether to change your pronunciation to mine, if nothing else to end this extra thought process every time?
Also, if I adapt my pronunciation to yours, I guess now I need to remember to say it your way every time we talk forever, and say it Henry's way when speaking to him, and now I have this whole table in my head of various pronunciations for various individuals.
And then what happens if I am in conversation with you and Henry at the same time? Do I say things your way, his way, or my way? And what do you do? And what does Henry do?
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Or we could just stop, agree upon a common pronunciation, and move forward at the normal speed of conversation.
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To clarify, the tone never should be condescending. This is a small matter. Therefore the tone should be light.
The pronunciation that is deemed "correct" is usually the one of the majority. So it is just an attempt to get everyone on the same page. It strikes me more as "inclusive" than "anti-inclusive". If I were "anti-inclusive", then I would silently let you say it your way, smile inside, and then talk behind your back to Henry about what a newb you are.
I just want to point out that pronouncing etc as etsy isn't universal by any means - in fact I suspect it's a very American pronunciation. If you pronounced it 'etsy' in a sentence here in the UK, people wouldn't understand what you're talking about.
Agree. Most English people at least would be nonplussed if you said "etsy etsy" rather than "etcetra etcetra" to indicate something that goes on and on.
Do you mean AmE speakers? Because 'confused' is (roughly) what it means to me, a BrE speaker, but your comment made me curious and indeed Wiktionary gives def 2 (proscribed, US, informal) as 'unfazed, unaffected, or unimpressed' instead.
Only the directory is pronounced etsy. The rest of the time we say et cetera.
I don't even know how widespread etsy is for the directory. I hardly ever hear anyone pronounce anything, since most communication among programmers is written.
> Or we could just stop, agree upon a common pronunciation, and move forward at the normal speed of conversation.
We can. That's largely fine.
But it is also worth recognizing that a root cause of this problem is the community's desire to use shortened names for everything. C/UNIX (and later Linux) has this convention and it leads to way more of these shibboleths than other ecosystems.
I would say unless it's someone extremely junior just use whatever they use. Communication is already difficult enough. "use customer's language", show some empathy
It takes some getting used to this idea, but I try to remember that when someone mispronounces an uncommon word or jargon term, it means that they're getting all their information through textual means - which probably means they don't have people close to them with the same interests or intellectual curiosity. That usually means, especially if it's a younger person, that they are smart and probably lonely.
With you until the last sentence. But yes, it does imply that they're resourceful enough to learn what they know with limited personal mentorship. It's worth gently guiding them towards the canonical pronunciation, but definitely don't be surprised if they show you up on how to use that thing they're mispronouncing.
> they're getting all their information through textual means
When I was very young, I had a friend who pronounced "modem" as "mod-DEEM" because he knew that the word is a portmanteau of "MOdulator-DEModulator".
His first exposure to "modem" was in print (computer magazines or BBSes), and it was some years before he heard the word spoken.
Many years later (but still many years ago!), I was pulled into a disagreement among a fledgling group of web designers: Is "GIF" pronounced with a hard G or a soft G ("jif")?
I realized that I'd never spoken the word aloud, and chose the hard G, because the word is an acronym for Graphics Interchange Format.
Needless to say, I did not resolve that argument with my appeal to originalism. In the intervening years, I've spoken the word countless times, and settled on the soft G because it flows better in speech. As far as I know, the correctness debate is still ongoing today.
I actually can't believe anyone says "etsy." If they ever do, I'm gonna be confused momentarily. And I'm not gonna follow suit, I'm gonna say E T C. If I ever get a friend.
PS I also say "libe." As if shortening the word library.
Honestly, this is about the most consistent of the batch in my experience. Many of them vary, but I've never heard anyone beyond the cd/ls level of tutorial Linux say "e t c".
I'd like to think I'm well above 'cd/ls level of tutorial Linux', but I've never said 'etsy', though I recall having a colleague who did and he did have to explain.
I wouldn't spell it out as 'e t c' though, I pronounce '/etc/' the same as 'etc.'/'&c.' (that is, with a reluctantly soft 'c' in 'cetera', since despite knowing better it's not worth getting into every time you say it!)
I’ve always said etsy, but I was exposed to that pronunciation first in the Windows world as in Windows-wack-system32-wack-drivers-wack-etsy to find the hosts file. While I used VAX systems around the same time, I never cared about /etc until using linux distros. I just assumed that efficient two-syllable pronunciation was the logical choice.
I've been using *NIXes for 15 years. I'm probably going to use them for at least 15 more. I'm never going to pronounce etc as etsy. It just sounds silly. e-t-c forever!
Jeez, how did you get from correct pronunciation to anti-inclusive?!
Most people just want to know what you are talking about when you say libe or cat slash prots slash mem in fo or worse.
Nothing is more infuriating when people start using wrong words in a 10h telco instead of agreed upon vocabulary, which includes the correct pronunciation! Scratch correct. It's the agreed upon pronunciation we all ought to use when working together.
> Nothing is more infuriating when people start using wrong words in a 10h telco instead of agreed upon vocabulary
Totally agree. This is also why doctors say 'pancreatic islets' rather than 'pink wibbly bit'.
Using precise technical language does create a barrier to entry but this is a side-effect of the primary purpose of precise technical language: to allow practitioners to communicate accurately and unambiguously.
Because what you call "in-group" is just a bunch of professionals that are working hard on making thier lives easier. One of the results of this collective effort is a consensus (more or sometimes less established, depending on the term) on the pronounciation. It usually doesn't make sense to disturb this for every single person that has a different "intuition" about how words should be pronounced.
> Why does this "agreed-upon pronunciation" take precedence over the "agreed-upon pronunciation" of English?
Excellent question. I don't know. People just assume that precedence as axiomatic (they just agree upon it), because it seems to work... well, easier with? More efficient? That's a subject for a study, I guess.
Of course by the in-group. People invent their own languages just to keep other peoples out of their culture or subculture. Since centuries. Another subject for a study. Knock yourself out, do the research and write a paper.
What is or isn't intuitive depends highly on context and background. Good luck finding something that's intuitive for everyone. People have tried and failed with artificial languages.
That's why people try to agree upon terms and their pronunciation first. Most languages are unintuitive and it's worse with tech jargon. So, when you work in tech business, or even in some tech club you cannot just walk in and talk like a child and expect everyone to treat you like an adult.
Exactly. It's just another thing to learn, and usually something you easily pick up through immersion. Jargon files (like The Jargon File [1]) are pretty amusing and can help illustrate where some of the quirkier conventions originated, but you can get by without them.
Ah, I was thinking about that, thanks for the link!
I was quite inspired by the Jargon File, back 15 years ago. But now it is wildly outdated. Flame wars are now called shitstorms and they are held on Twitter. Hackers are not really outcasts anymore, and there is a general acceptance of "hacker culture". Although hackers are now synonymous with foreign state agents rather than criminals.
Who cares though? Why does "correct pronunciation" matter? Linux is nowadays used by many more non-native English speakers who will pronounce it very differently.
This attempt at correcting others seems like gatekeeping and, to me personally, feels like a very anti-inclusive thing to do.
Tangentially, the fact that some of the pronunciation is so non-intuitive (e.g. /etc -> etsy) should be a bug, not a feature and pride point. Can you imagine if you reported that a workflow is non-intuitive in a piece of SW and the devs told you "we know, cool, right?!"