This is How You Pronounce Ubuntu

Here’s one for you. Where I live they pronounce H as “haitch” rather than “aitch”. By the same logic X would be pronounced “zex”. WTF? Such a fundamental mispronunciation is very irritating. Be glad you don’t have to listen to that.

Actually, I was referring to the proper English pronunciations, not American English. Fuck yeah I say rout-er in the states, but in a country that speaks English, I’d say rooter.

American English evolved to be intentionally different than English to define the US as different than Britain or France. And it’s actually a cool story. I especially like the way Americans hacked the French place names like changing Grossier to Gooseberries or Raddisson to Radishes. It’s a lot of fun.

Colorful language leads to wonderful experimentation and discovery.

As my Auntie always said, “if you can’t spell a word at least three ways, you’re not trying.”

Here is a thought, come up with bettern names not this goofy crap. If the majority of people cannot pronouce it correctly with out a phoenetic explanation you probably have yourself a stupid-ass name.

Here is a thought, come up with bettern names not this goofy crap. If the majority of people cannot pronouce it correctly with out a phoenetic explanation you probably have yourself a stupid-ass name.

I like how the Digg crowd just rolled right in and brought the level down to theirs. Ha.

Well, it’s hard for the uber-educated US citizens, but the rest of the world just doesn’t need FAQs on pronunciation :) And those of them that have access to these intertubeZ and can write (a bit), they are just emphasizing on this :)

That’s like all the geeks who insist that people say “MON-GA” not “MAYN-GA” or “ON-EEMAY” instead of “ANN-EEMAY.” Haha!

Of course, I’m playing devil’s advocate because I’m a stickler for pronunciations also.

omg, have you nothing better to do?

Three cheers for proper pronunciation.

It’s Oh Es Ex.

When it’s referenced in media or print, specifically when a version number, it is always typed “OS X 10.4″. Even on Apple’s website, 10.5 is referred to as “OS X 10.5 Leopard”.

Here’s a reference.

http://arstechnica.com/reviews/os/macosx-10-4.ars

It’s not “Oh Es Ten Ten Point Four”. That’s redundant and stupid. It’s “Oh Es X Ten Point Four”. The X was used as an indicator that Apple had jumped on the Unix bandwagon.

And while we’re on the subject, there are two…count ‘em…two “r’s” in February and the first one isn’t silent!!

As a norwegian I say u-bun-tu, pronouncing the “u” like in english “flu”. Here, we also say lih-nuks with the stress on the “i”, but a short “i” and not quite as Linus Torvalds say it, with a long “i”. About the pronounciation for Linux, I’ve seen another interview with Torvalds where he’s saying “linn-iks”. That’s also how I hear other english/americans say it.

But I very much agree with the article author that we all should try to say names in the original language, at least people’s names. It has something to do with respect for the person and we show that we care. Then you get respect back.

Names on things aren’t equally important to say in their original pronounciation. In fact, I’d never heard Linux as “linn-iks” before I heard Linus Torvalds say it in that interview, but now I know how to say it in America. It’s important if I want to be understood. Simple as pai. :)

This is all about the attitude of translating/naturalizing/translittering (does the latter exist???) words in our own languages.

I am Italian, and I live and work in the Netherlands – and at the very beginning finding the way the same acronyms and words were pronounced was really funny.

It all began with a “SCOOSIE” (it meant SCSI) – in Italian people tend to say “SCUSIE”. On a “SRVER” pronounced as the word “Surfer” would have been. Then it was the time for “EEAFA” (ee-afa), meaning Java. And now, the new operating system from Microsoft is often called “FISTA” (in german, dutch and many other anglosaxon languages, V is pronounced as F). Anyway – it’s Fista time, now: it seems a porn movie title :)

To keep it short: yes, it’s quite true – the English language is not so rich of sound, and the words have a pronunciation. But I would start worrying about that when vocal control becomes mandatory…

As for OSX: Roman digits are used for ordinals (1st, 2nd, 3rd…), not cardinals (1, 2, 3..). So, very sorry, even Apple is wrong – it should be called Mac OS Tenth!

As a South African, I’m glad the world didn’t Americanise or Anglicize the word Ubuntu! :) It means togetherness

Don’t know if this was mentioned but what’s the big deal on how you say it? My brother and I say it one way, but our friends say it different, but all that matters is that we USE it. Isn’t that what Ubuntu is here for in the first place?

My brother and I are “you-bun-tu” guys.

We have friends that go every which way on the pronunciation.

Just my $.02 on the subject.

Someone just pointed this post out to me. I’m the guy mentioned in comment #2. I pronounce Ubuntu “oo-bun-tu” and I flat out don’t care if you don’t like it.

Grammar, spelling and pronunciation zealots are just as bad as operating system zealots, they don’t further the cause, they just get peoples backs up.