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Comment by YeGoblynQueenne | Hacker News Reader

Thank you for the new knowledge that "eso" is pronounced similar to "iso" in some dialects of English, I didn't know that.

However, the word "isoteric" is more correctly spelled (in non-phonetic spelling) as esoteric. The prefix "eso-" means "inside" in Greek, as in "esothermic", or "esophagus". The prefix "iso-" means "equal", as in "isomorphism", "isosceles", "isometric", etc.

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Maybe dial back the sarcasm a notch or two?

He wasn’t being sarcastic.

He, who? :)

I’m pretty sure they’re a native speaker of Greek, given their name on GitHub.

Many apologies - I was not being sarcastic and I'm sorry that this is how my comment came across. As chongli says I'm a native speaker of Greek and I really didn't know how "eso" is pronounced by native English speakers. I've lived for 15 years in the UK and I'm still surprised to hear how people pronounce the more obscure words in their language (some of which come from Greek).

Oops, sorry, I apologise for the mistake. I have seen too much bad behaviour on the 'net, so naturally I assumed the worst. It's a valuable lesson at the modest cost of a few karma points. (I guess I violated HN guidelines too, there. Good thing I don't have the power to downvote yet. I might have done so, and never discovered my mistake.)

Hey, it's OK, no need to apologise. Sorry I caused you to be downvoted.

You didn't cause the downvote. Really. But in any case, there are more important things in the world than HN karma. And keep up your Greek lessons. That's one language I'd love to learn, if only I had the time. But I understand it is fiendishly difficult for non-native speakers. (Source: Greek to Me: Adventures of the Comma Queen by Mary Norris.)

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