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Comment by adzm | Hacker News Reader

While on the subject, this is why you may see et cetera abbreviated as etc and &c. And if you think of the latter as "et c" you have a popular website Etsy that sells et cetera.

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I really wanted to believe that was Etsy's etymology, but alas it is not:

http://www.cnn.com/2011/LIVING/04/22/website.name.origins.mf...

(Not sure if that's what you were implying, clever idea though.)

Thanks for finding an actual source on this!

I wish that page had mentioned that Bing is derived from "Bing is not Google" ... even if it isn't true ;-)

I've had so many people tell me there wasn't a directory called /etsy when I tell them to cd to /etc.

You actually say it like etsy? I've always said something like "et-k" or just etcetera in full.

Not OP but I always say "etsy", and "etsy-d" for etcd. I have never explored if these are correct pronunciations or not...

I have also always pronounced /etc as "etsy". I'm always thrown off when people say "ee tee see" or "etcetera", but that's pretty rare in my experience.

The people who pronounce /usr as "you ess are" instead of "user" kind of drive me crazy though.

I almost always have to say "you ess are" because while many people I talk to confuse etc and etsy, nearly everyone tries to type "/user" when I tell them to go to "forward slash user". Even people who should know better.

Interesting. I wonder if the "forward slash" bit is making people start thinking literally rather than making associations to what they already know?

If I'm talking about a common system location, I don't even mention the slashes, e.g. "user bin", "etsy init dot dee", "var log httpd" and so on. If someone started off telling me to go to, say, "forward slash user forward slash library" I would just start transcribing /user/library, assuming it was something nonstandard. For /usr/lib, I'd expect to just hear "go to user lib".

yeah, sometimes it actually is spelled user though. Like I think Macs have /usr as well as /User dirs in the root.

/usr may be pronounced "user" for convenience, but it was conceived as "Unix System Resources directory", not "user directory".

I believe that's a backronym.

http://www.tldp.org/LDP/Linux-Filesystem-Hierarchy/html/usr....

In current Unices, /usr is where user-land programs and data (as opposed to 'system land' programs and data) are. The name hasn't changed, but it's meaning has narrowed and lengthened from "everything user related" to "user usable programs and data". As such, some people may now refer to this directory as meaning 'User System Resources' and not 'user' as was originally intended.

I like "oo-zer" which is both easier to say and less confusable with "user".

In ye olden days oft UNIX, users home directorys lived in /usr/username.

I've always called /etc "etss", /usr "user", /tmp "temp", /var "varr" (like a pirate would I guess), and /dev "dev".

Then again, I never liked "scuzzy" for SCSI, it felt awkward in conversation even with other techies. It grew on me about the time the protocol was dying out.

Also..."gif" as in "gift" or "jif" as in the peanut butter? ;-)

I've never been able to say "scuzzy". My grandparents used that word to mean trashy or dirty people, and I've never been able to use it in a professional context.

I came of age in IT around 2005/2006, and it took me a really long time to connect the "scuzzy" people were talking about with SCSI as written. I always kinda liked the pronunciation though, once I figured out what it was referring to.

GIF as in gift, and all the other root-level directories you named, I'm on the same page as you.

My high school graduation present in 1995 was a TI TravelMate 4000M laptop computer. It had no built in CD-ROM drive (I don't think any laptop did until the late 90s) but it had a full size SCSI port on the back. I promptly went to the local electronics superstore and asked for a "Ess See Ess Eye" external CD-ROM drive. The clerk looked at me like I was smoking something, then said "Oh, you mean a 'scuzzy' drive, sure we've got those!" I distinctly remember thinking at first the guy must not be proud of his product lineup. A few moments later the acronym and his pronunciation clicked and I felt really embarrassed.

"gif" as in the Dutch word for poison, with the hard "g".

It always surprises me a little when I 'ls /' and /etc is up the top rather than at the very end. Mentally i've always placed 'etc' at the end, from 'et cetera'/'so on and so forth'/'misc'/'appendix'...

Americans often say "ect" (spelled out †). As a Dutch person (when talking in Dutch we say this as "etc" (eat tea sea) or "et cetera") it is very hard for me to not do the lord's work and correct them. And I guess it works if you abbreviate it as Et CeTera.

† edited to add that it's spelled out

I'm pretty sure I have never encountered "ect" from any person of any nationality.

I believe it's a common mispronounciation, but I have come across this quite often.

I've lived my whole life in the United States, lived I two very different and distance parts, traveled around the country.

I've never heard this. like ever.

Ok, so our experiences differ. Not a big deal.

I think you may be hearing something else and interpreting it as "ect." I also am from the US and have never once in my entire life heard this.

People spell it e-c-t. I have heard it often. I can't help it that you haven't!

I've heard people say "ek cetera" quite a bit.

I've always heard it pronounced incorrectly as "ek setra". And now I'm wondering if it's unusual to pronounce the last word with all three syllables, as I do...

If you hate this as much as I do, don't listen to Sweet and Tender Hooligan by The Smiths. It's a great song, but the last minute or so is horror.

Yeah, true. To the point where I suppose it's basically standard in a bunch of regional dialects.

I have - and I distinctly remember doing it myself as a small child and being corrected by my teacher. (I'm English by the way).

It's a common misspelling in America, similar to incorrect uses of your vs you're.

I've never heard an American spell out "etc.", correctly or not, in conversation; I'm having trouble believing that doing so, much less a particular incorrect way of doing it, is common generally among "Americans", though there may be some narrower regional or other subculture in which it is common.

I am American and say "ee tee cee" for /etc.. but this could possibly be because I taught myself computer science online when I was a kid and so never heard people say many of the terms out loud.

I've heard people pronounce it "eck cetera" many, many times, presumably because they've never actually seen the word in print.

I've never heard anyone say "ect", which would imply that they've seen the word but can't read.

Does any other language pronounce "et cetera" with the "hard" C, as it would be said in Latin?

Occasionally, you might encounter a Latin-speaking pedant who says "Kaizar" (this could also be a German :)) and "et ketera", but it isn't the norm in US English anyway.

I don't know Latin (aside from common phrases) but in many Romance languages (French, Spanish, Italian, Romanian) the ‘C’ is only hard when followed by ‘a’, ‘o’ or ‘u’ (referred to as broad vowels in Irish/Gaelic).

How often is often? I've never seen that in my life.

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