Re: Pronounciation of Linux that important? - curiosity about origin
On Fri, Feb 18, 2000 at 12:25:30AM -0500, Daniel Barclay wrote:
>
> > From: Hamish Moffatt <hamish@debian.org>
>
>
> > Well, native English speakers pronounce Linus as Lie-nus (as in
> > Peanuts).. but Linus Torvalds is pronounced Lee-nus, and he says Linux
> > is Lee-nux. If he doesn't know, nobody does! So I'm with him.
>
>
> Since those would suggest only "LIE-nucks" and "LEE-nucks", I still
> wonder: Where did "LIH-nucks" come from?
>
> Did the sound come through someone speaking a language that has neither
> the long-e nor long-i sounds (of English) (so only a short i was
> perceived and repeated)?
>
> Was it just an odd perception of how the letters l-i-n-u-x would
> be pronounced?
Well, this poor sap, never having heard the word pronouned, and before
hearing the Linn-Uhks vs. Lie-nucks debates, came up with the Lie-nucks
pronunciation based on regular American English phonetics. You've got a
vowel preceding a single hard consonant which is then followed by a
single vowel which is followed by a hard consonant. By default, that
first vowel is long (though there are many exceptions).
For instance, compare: "final", "fiddle" (special 'le' == 'el' rule),
"liken", "limber"; "liner","linger"; etc...
I have a hard time saying "Linn-Ucks", just 'cause it doesn't "sound"
right -- whatever that means in American! Same as I have to remind
myself to say "Gah-Noo" instead of "Noo" (soft "g" rule in "gn" dipthong).
So, I for one will continue to say "lie-nucks" and to hell with the
pronunciation police!
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| Eric G. Miller egm2@jps.net |
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