this post was submitted on 26 Feb 2025
665 points (97.3% liked)

Programmer Humor

20828 readers
1262 users here now

Welcome to Programmer Humor!

This is a place where you can post jokes, memes, humor, etc. related to programming!

For sharing awful code theres also Programming Horror.

Rules

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 

nginx ("engine x") is an HTTP web server, reverse proxy, content cache, load balancer, TCP/UDP proxy server, and mail proxy server. […] [1]

I still pronounce it as "n-jinx" in my head.

References

  1. Title (website): "nginx". Publisher: NGINX. Accessed: 2025-02-26T23:25Z. URI: https://nginx.org/en/.
    • §"nginx". ¶1.
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (3 children)

Wtf?

It's Jason. If they wanted it pronounced that way, they should've spelled it differently...

Like GIF

Sorry, no, at least one could argue GIF. JSON is a single freakin' vowel short of a common male name.

Morons.

[–] [email protected] 32 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Jason = jay-sun
JSON = jay-sawn

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

No, it's pronounced Jason. Douglas Crockford was just too laissez-faire to correct anyone on it probably because he didn't give a fuck.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 day ago (1 children)

If you really just say Jason instead of jaysawn/J-sohn you're nuts and probably drive everyone crazy with that

[–] [email protected] 3 points 23 hours ago* (last edited 19 hours ago) (1 children)

You & your buddies can keep pronouncing it jaysawn & sounding like complete dorks if it makes you feel better. However, it was clearly intended to be pronounced naturally as Jason like its inventor pronounces it.

Believing otherwise is almost as bad as the plebs who think the symbol ∅ is inspired by Greek letter φ instead of Scandinavian letter Ø.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 23 hours ago (1 children)

Didn't realize I was buddies with 99% of everyone that's interacted with JSON!

Also didn't know people used the term 'plebs' unironically, you sound like an absolute joy to be around

[–] [email protected] 2 points 22 hours ago* (last edited 19 hours ago) (1 children)

You seem in irrational need for validation of your pronunciation despite clear justification against it. Cool ad populum. Fly that insecurity flag high.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 22 hours ago (1 children)

Buddy. The inventor's intention is not clear justification. Language becomes what is most colloquially used. You'll be dying on this hill 20 years from now. You argue like a redditor, insufferable

[–] [email protected] 0 points 21 hours ago (1 children)

There's the original pronunciation, the suggestive spelling, the common phenomenon of punning in programming, and the natural way people pronounce it as a familiar name when they first see it. Then there's your camp with a mythical, dorky pronunciation they pull out of nowhere and reinforce because.

I think people are fine to call it Jason & drive you irrationally mad.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 21 hours ago* (last edited 3 hours ago) (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 1 points 20 hours ago

it must be a bunch of dorks that pronounce it wrong just because, right?

Yep: I often see people try to "correct" learners at bootcamps pronouncing it Jason. The fact people pronounce it Jason until told otherwise tells us which is more natural. The "correction", in contrast, is a myth that must be learned.

Acknowledging something happens doesn't endorse it, and Crawford never endorsed your pronunciation as natural. As I suggested earlier, he said "I strictly don't care". Jason is a completely reasonable & natural pronunciation.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 day ago (2 children)

They're joking. js doesn't even officially stand for JavaScript due to Oracle's IP claim over the JavaScript name.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 day ago

And even more annoying, JavaScript is not correctly uppercased for common styles

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Oracle probably makes more money from the dmca than their actual products tbh.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 18 hours ago

Oracle actually making products and services is only their side hustle

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 day ago (1 children)

GIF like Geoffrey the giraffe, if you get my gist. Always has been.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 day ago (3 children)

I always thought the G stood for graphics, but now I know it stands for giraffics.

[–] zarkanian 2 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

JPEG = "jay-feg"

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (3 children)

It doesn't matter what it stands for. That's not how acronyms work.

You don't say "yolwa" for "YOLO"
You don't say "Ah-ih-dees" for "AIDS"
You don't say "britches" for "BRICS"
You don't say "sue-knee" for "CUNY" (City University of New York) Etc.

And if you want to argue specifically about G:
You don't say "Jad" for "GAD" (generalized anxiety disorder)
You don't say "joes" for "GOES" (Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite)

It's not a hill I'm going to die on, I use both pronunciations, but the only argument I've ever believed for the proper one is that the creator pronounced it "jif". https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/GIF#Pronunciation

Now let's talk about "gibs" you heathens.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 day ago

I thought we were having a bit of a joke, but then you really went and gave me a gift of paragraphs.

I think the creator was keeping the joke running by saying that. The word gift is why people prefer to say gif over jif, it's how we were taught to pronounce "gif". The rest of the g words are irrelevant to be honest.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 day ago

You don’t say “sue-knee” for “CUNY” (City University of New York) Etc.

Of course not, then it would conflict with SUNY (State University of New York)

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 day ago (1 children)

SCUBA and NASA are always the ones I use against that argument. It would be Skuh-baa instead of scooba, and neh-sa instead of nah-suh.

And no matter what way it was spelled, it’s the only word we’re still arguing about that literally has a song to go with it to make sure everyone pronounced it correctly. It’s pretty clearly a soft g, because it was a marketing trick, not a dictionary word. It doesn’t have to follow any rules of English, just like all those companies just removing random letters and changing ck for x, etc. Flickr, tumblr, Grindr, scribd, Lyft, Kwik, Cheez, etc etc etc. Twitter was originally even twttr.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (2 children)

People forget in the 90s/00s both GIF and JIF were relatively common image file types. It was only logical to use the hard G for GIF. So that's how we used it. This overrules all arguments of how acronyms work or what the creator originally called it.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 49 minutes ago

nobody was using jif as a file type in the 90s, and no it wasn't "only logical to use the hard G". There are plenty of sources stating that no one pronounced it with a soft g up until it got popular as an image format on social media. It was universally understood to be a play on the peanut butter name. There are plenty of sources on this, I'm sorry but you're either just making shit up or you were the only person to call it with a hard g in the 90s.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 day ago

Bah, I was there. .jif was barely used and came 5 years after. They should have used a different name!

[–] [email protected] -1 points 1 day ago