Path: csiph.com!fu-berlin.de!uni-berlin.de!individual.net!not-for-mail From: rbowman Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.misc Subject: Re: GNU Date: 3 Mar 2026 18:50:56 GMT Lines: 37 Message-ID: References: <10o629v$1qssb$1@dont-email.me> <10o6emj$1uql3$5@dont-email.me> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-Trace: individual.net iZvJjqKq9mXeqDpiErN8dAU+mR1dD4Ig5BpZhp9BVJJMkpWREw Cancel-Lock: sha1:B6cVms9gHm8RosKH/WwcJ2EJf+A= sha256:EZXdpMNd7eyWcT+r9dAm3tYKsmhkjCGTo5yyPFCc+HQ= User-Agent: Pan/0.162 (Pokrosvk) Xref: csiph.com comp.os.linux.misc:82353 On Tue, 3 Mar 2026 10:55:15 +0000, The Natural Philosopher wrote: > On 03/03/2026 07:23, Bobbie Sellers wrote: >> No authority but I say GNU which I pronounce with a silent g. It sounds >> a lot like new but most people using it in context seem to follow what >> I said when we had in person LUG meetings. GNU is an acronym of course >> of the descriptive phrase, "GNU is Not Unix". > If always silently said ger-noo. > > But I cant remember ever saying it out loud or hearing it said. Not even > in Africa, where it lives > > Which is perhaps a reflection on how important it is in computing. https://www.gnu.org/fun/jokes/gnu-song.html When Lunduke said it several times I realized that I've seldom, if ever, heard it pronounced despite all the GNU/Linux corrections by the purists. GNOME, however is hard to avoid. https://stuff.mit.edu/afs/athena/astaff/project/aui/html/ pronunciation.html https://x.com/gnome/status/1169956747324227585?lang=en That supposedly is the GNOME account. "Technically it is pronounced with the hard G, "Guh-Nome", but calling us by our phonetic English pronunciation "Nome" is just fine!  After 22 years we've heard it said every possible way lol" We had a programmer who would talk about passing pair o' meters to a function. He was self-taught and may have hit on the pronunciation but I think he also did it to upset another programmer.