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Comment by spidermango | Hacker News Reader

How do you pronounce Coq?

The correct French pronunciation would be something close to English "coke" but with a shorter 'o' sound.

I don't think this is correct - coq does not have a /u/ sound in /cok/ but coke is pronounced /couk/ (sorry for the completely unortodox phonetic language).

>coke is pronounced /couk/

Well, it entirely depends where you live. The GP's comment make perfect sense where I am, and seem a good explanation, but sure, depends on how you pronounce 'coke'!

'Coq' (cock/rooster) in this case is the same as the 'Coq' in "Coq au vin" which is a dish some English speakers might be familiar with.

https://forvo.com/word/coq/#fr

Rooster synonym (see their icon).

Not trying to be childish, but let's be honest, this is a horrible name if you are not a native english speaker. I just hear giggles every time somebody mentions this name...

For the record, French speakers also have at first a hard time with the "bit" word that is usually pronounced at the very beginning of any introductory CS class. Indeed, it has the same figurative meaning as "cock" in English. Worse, you can find it in compounds such as "32-bit" or "bitfield", so try figure out the evocative power of those expressions.

Usually and fortunately though, the average person simply grows up and stops giggling at the word quite quickly. And so do Coq users.

It's intentional. Last time this came up, it was verified that the authors definitely understood the double meaning.

Define "the authors". Gérard Huet, who wrote the software almost 35 years ago was definitely aware of the meaning, and indeed this was done in order to overtly piss off the prudish Amercians.

In the current core development team, I think it is reasonable to say that most people range somewhere on a scale from "don't care" to "mildly annoyed". Amongst the annoyed group, some actually advocate for a change of name.

This is a horrible name even for native english speakers. I still have to coach people not to giggle whenever I bring up LaTeX - unless it's exclusively vocally in which case the "lah-TECH" puts their mind elsewhere.

I kinda miss those times where you could talk about those Thinkpad clits at work and no one would bat an eye. The degree of puritanism of the new generation is a bit terrifying.

We had plenty of women in the lab, btw.

I don't think it's puritanism, it's just keeping things separate. In an office we're all there to work and not get embroiled in relationship drama - so calling that nub a clit is just unnecessarily bringing sex into things.

Really? Why, because they make condoms with latex? Or tight clothes? I wouldn’t expect people to care about that word.

Latex is strongly associated with BDSM.

... in some (BDSM fahig?) circles? I know it's used there, but there are quite a lot of other things I think of before that. And some colleagues I just asked as well.

You have hens, and you have cocks. I don't see what the problem is. Look at some nice birds to reset your brain: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cock-of-the-rock

Well the French maintainers think it's pretty funny, so it's a little childish.

I gues they think it's funny in a way that the "CHICKEN" Scheme [1] is funny.

[1] https://www.call-cc.org/

What's the joke there? I couldn't see it.

Coq means a rooster in French that is not a usual name for theorem prover by itself. Therefore Coq developers should have thought that it is at least an interesting (and more likely, funny) idea to name it after an animal, much like CHICKEN Scheme.

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