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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[–] rtxn 103 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year 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 1 year 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 1 year ago (1 children)

And he pronounces it Leenooks

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago

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

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year 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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[–] Epzillon 54 points 1 year 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 1 year ago (6 children)

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

[–] Heavybell 8 points 1 year 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 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year 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 1 year ago (2 children)

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

[–] samus12345 8 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year 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.

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

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

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[–] z00s 26 points 1 year 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 1 year ago (6 children)

akshully

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

IIRC

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year 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 1 year 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.

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year 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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[–] Sinthesis 4 points 1 year 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.

[–] Chainweasel 26 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year 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.

[–] Draghetta 6 points 1 year 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 1 year ago (4 children)

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

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

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

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[–] [email protected] 21 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

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

[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 year ago (2 children)
[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

The first time I heard it it was pronounced Linux

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[–] helmet91 3 points 1 year ago

I've always pronounced it as "Linux". And then, one day I heard it from a native English speaker pronouncing it as "Linix", and I still keep hearing that everywhere, but I just cannot fix my brain anymore. To me it always remains "Linux".

[–] Gigan 18 points 1 year 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.

[–] rtxn 22 points 1 year ago (4 children)
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[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 year ago (8 children)

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

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year 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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[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year 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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[–] khaffner 15 points 1 year ago (2 children)
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[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago (5 children)

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

[–] misophist 6 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

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

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[–] RampantParanoia2365 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year 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 1 year ago

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

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago (1 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.

[–] Wootz 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Interesting! Do you happen to know where the -UX suffix convention came from?

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

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

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