• thehatfox@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    What is with Linux projects and confusingly pronounceable names? Even the name “Linux” itself has a fair bit of spoken variation.

    Then there’s Ubuntu, and GNOME with the hard G to name a few.

    • federalreverse-old@feddit.de
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      8 months ago

      SUSE originated in Germany, where it’s just the normal pronunciation. “Suse” also pre-existed as a nickname for “Susanne” (of course, the company name was derived from an acronym which isn’t used anymore).

      The issue comes in when non-Germans, especially English-language natives try to pronounce the word. English pronunciation is incredibly inconsistent. Hence English speakers tend to fail (very confidently) when pronouncing foreign-language words.

      (Fwiw, Germans and many others don’t know anything about the silent G in “gnome” and will happily pronounce GNOME the way the project intends without being told. Similar things are true for the I in Linux.)

    • flashgnash@lemm.ee
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      8 months ago

      If I hear a YouTuber pronounce it Lynux it immediately makes me skeptical of whatever they have to say

      Unless it’s satire of course

      • Dandroid@sh.itjust.works
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        8 months ago

        I mostly work with people who learned to speak English in India, and most of them say line-ux or lean-ux. I always assumed it was an accent thing. Though there are a million distinct accents in India, and I’m not really well educated on them, so I’m sort of guessing.

    • maynarkh@feddit.nl
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      8 months ago

      I guess Linux projects tend to come from around the world, instead of US boardrooms and marketing desks.

      Linux is Finnish, SUSE is German, so is KDE, Ubuntu is South African, GNOME is Mexican (?).

    • Possibly linux@lemmy.zip
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      8 months ago

      I pronounce gnome like it should be pronounced, “gnome”.

      It is dumb to pronounce the g