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Comment by nihilocrat | Hacker News Reader

Has anyone seen a similar effect with UNIX / Linux admins in the pronunciation of /etc? Most newcomers say "et cetera", but veterans tend to say "et-see".

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see also --> pronunciation of "sudo"

"soo-doo" vs. "pseudo"?

Other ones that come to mind:

   * char (like "char-broiled"? like "care"?)
   * /proc ("prock"?)
   * SQL ("see-quel" or "S Q L")
   * zsh - I guess that could be "zee shell" or "zed shell"

"care" is the most logical pronunciation (as that's how you pronounce the first syllable of "character"), but I've never heard anyone say that. "char" (as in burning to a crisp) is the second-most logical, and is what I say.

I think I actually avoid the word in practice; "cstring" instead of "char star", etc.

I say "care", but I also taught myself C from library books when I was a kid. It was a while before I talked with anyone about C data types, of all things.

I pronounce char like car. Now that I think about it, that seems weird.

I think "car" makes more sense as that's how character is pronounced. I say it that way in my head, but switch to "char"-as-in-burn when speaking aloud as most people don't know what I mean.

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