I've made this mistake with LaTeX. I was so embarrassed when someone told me "Its pronounced lah-tekh".
> One of the hardest things about LaTeX is deciding how to pronounce it.This is also one of the few things I'm not going to tell you about LaTeX, since pronunciation is best determined by usage, not fiat. TeX is usually pronounced teck, making lah-teck, and lay-teck the logical choices; but language is not always logical, so lay-tecks is also possible.
See also http://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/17502/what-is-the-cor...
> Insiders pronounce the χ of TeX as a Greek chi, not as an ‘x’, so that TeX rhymes with the word blecchhh. It’s the ‘ch’ sound in Scottish words like loch or German words like ach; it’s a Spanish ‘j’ and a Russian ‘kh’. When you say it correctly to your computer, the terminal may become slightly moist.
Surely, we should be insiders.
Too pool -or- Tup ulll -or- Tup lee
So many choice from just five letters....
"Tup Lee" just seems silly.
(It's historically rhymed with couple)
On the other hand, a lot of Latin-originating words have had their pronunciations changed in US English, the canonical example being data (from UK English "da-ta" to US English "day-ta", which has now begun to become standard everywhere due to the tech industry) so I guess other words could go the same way.
So it's true! It is pronounced with a short initial syllable. I've always pronounced it along the lines of toople.