this post was submitted on 12 Dec 2023
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Showerthoughts

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A "Showerthought" is a simple term used to describe the thoughts that pop into your head while you're doing everyday things like taking a shower, driving, or just daydreaming. A showerthought should offer a unique perspective on an ordinary part of life.

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[–] [email protected] 103 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (3 children)

Well, ackshually...

tl;dw: the Swedish and Finnish pronunciations use the same "i" as "Linux", but Torvalds doesn't care if people use the English one.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I first started using Linux in 1995 (I think it was kernel 1.2 or something), and this was being argued over (or at least discussed) even back then. The conclusion was that Leenus doesn’t care how you pronounce Leenux.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 11 months ago (1 children)

And he pronounces it Leenooks

[–] [email protected] 7 points 11 months ago

You’re exactly correct. That was my best approximation.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 11 months ago

That was very enlightening, the Spanish pronunciation is actually more close to that than the English one, so I feel very validated as an Spanish speaker. Thank you. Also didn't knew that he wasn't from an English speaking country.

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[–] [email protected] 54 points 11 months ago (6 children)

Except it doesn't in Finnish, where Linus Torvald is from. Linus and Linux is pronounced the same except for the final consonant.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 11 months ago (6 children)

So his name is really Lin-us and not Line-us?

[–] [email protected] 8 points 11 months ago (3 children)

I believe I saw a youtube clip of him saying his name and Linux that way, yes.

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

Yes.

Source: I'm Norwegian but I used to know an irate IT finn named Linus. A separate irate IT finn named Linus, that is.

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[–] [email protected] 16 points 11 months ago (2 children)

I'm Italian and I pronounce both "i"s in the same way. Why is English so strange?

[–] [email protected] 8 points 11 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 11 points 11 months ago (2 children)

Hey, we pronounce both the same, too. Sorry English, that's on you and you alone.

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

In this particular instance, the Great Vowel Shift is to blame. What caused that is up for debate.

In general, English is so strange because it's a mongrel language, incorporating words from a variety of other different languages.

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[–] [email protected] 26 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (11 children)

I've heard a lot of people pronounce it "Line-ux" lately. I hope it doesn't blow up into another Gif vs Jif debate.

Edit: and if it was supposed to be pronounced jif it would be spelled "jif", regardless of what Steve Wilhite says.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 11 months ago (6 children)

There is nothing to debate, Linux is just Linus with an x at the end and should be pronounced as such.

Though sometimes I wish Linus had claimed it was pronounced laynaxe just to fuck with people. Too bad we already know: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=c39QPDTDdXU&pp=ygUpbXkgbmFtZSBpcyBsaW51cyB0b3J2YWxkcyBhbmQgaSBwcm9ub3VuY2U%3D

[–] [email protected] 4 points 11 months ago (4 children)

Y'know the gnome/Guh-nome debate? I intentionally pronounce it Zhnome to fuck with people.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 11 months ago

It's jee-nom, pronounced while rotating your eyes

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[–] [email protected] 25 points 11 months ago (4 children)

The real debate is whether it's sudo or sudo.

I know it means "super user do" so should be pronounced "sue doo", but it just grates on my ear. To me it will always be "Sue dough"

[–] [email protected] 6 points 11 months ago (6 children)

akshully

It's "substitute user do", and defaults to root

IIRC

[–] intrapt 4 points 11 months ago (1 children)

So it should be pronounced "suh doo"?

I'll have fun annoying people with this pronunciation, thanks!

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 11 months ago (1 children)

It's really confusing because "pseudo" pronounce the same way, means not real. So it's like you only kind of have admin access but really there's a lot of systems you can't change. Except that's not the case, and you have full access.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 11 months ago

Yeah but you're not really root, you just have permission to run things as root ;)

That's my flimsy justification for pronouncing it like pseudo, anyway.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 11 months ago (8 children)

Ah, yeah, that fucked me up too few months ago, there are several videos on the subject. I think it's a problem with words that are created as written first, and then got pronounced, in second place, like most tech lingo. As a non-native speaker those are always the hardest to speak correctly, and even english has no real consensus.

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 11 months ago

I have no source to back this up so maybe I came up with this in my own reality, but I thought it was related to, pseudo = pretended.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (2 children)

I’ve always pronounced it Linux. Who pronounces it another way?

[–] [email protected] 16 points 11 months ago (2 children)
[–] [email protected] 6 points 11 months ago

The first time I heard it it was pronounced Linux

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[–] [email protected] 18 points 11 months ago (6 children)

English doesn't make sense because it's been influenced by so many other languages. I'm not sure of the etymology of Linux and Linus, but I would guess that they have different roots.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 11 months ago (8 children)

I thought Linux was named after Linus Torvalds, its creator.

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 11 months ago (3 children)

They do have different roots.

One is % sudo su –

And the other is Canadian directly. Ask his parents their nationality to find better roots.

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[–] kersploosh 4 points 11 months ago

“English is not a language, it's three languages wearing a trench coat pretending to be one.”

For more fun, right about the time the printing press came into widespread use and English spelling became standardized, the language was in the middle of the Great Vowel Shift.

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[–] [email protected] 15 points 11 months ago (2 children)
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[–] [email protected] 9 points 11 months ago (5 children)

You don't pronounce it "line-ux?"

[–] [email protected] 6 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

No, I pronounce them Lee-nukes and Lee-noose.

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Well he named it, didn't he? It's his own pronunciations.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

Actually, he didn't even name it that way, though he did later dictate how it should be pronounced before demonstrating that pronunciation with a completely different pronunciation.

Ari Lemmke, Torvalds' coworker at the Helsinki University of Technology (HUT) who was one of the volunteer administrators for the FTP server at the time, did not think that "Freax" was a good name, so he named the project "Linux" on the server without consulting Torvalds.[58] Later, however, Torvalds consented to "Linux".

According to a newsgroup post by Torvalds,[11] the word "Linux" should be pronounced (/ˈlɪnʊks/ ⓘ LIN-uuks) with a short 'i' as in 'print' and 'u' as in 'put'. To further demonstrate how the word "Linux" should be pronounced, he included an audio guide with the kernel source code.[59] However, in this recording, he pronounces Linux as /ˈlinʊks/ (LEEN-uuks) with a short but close front unrounded vowel, instead of a near-close near-front unrounded vowel as in his newsgroup post.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 11 months ago

Dammit he's a Finnish nerd, not a linguist.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 11 months ago (2 children)

Quick recap.

So, Linux is Linux because a set of events that lead to it being named after Linus.

It wasn't uncommon at this time for Unix systems to be named after their relevant creator or platform like this. HP-UX, PC-UX A/UX etc.

Linux would probably be seen as LIN-UX or LIN/UX, it may not seeing as Linux is not Unix, but that's just speculation.

Linux in its proper reading would be Linus Unix, but that doesn't make any sense Linux is Unix-like, but it was made in a vacuum without access to Unix source or even Unix systems at all near the beginning.

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[–] b0gl 4 points 11 months ago

It's the same in Swedish so I never realized it's pronounced differently

[–] [email protected] 3 points 11 months ago (1 children)
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