Coq searches for alternative name
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For those who are wondering, 'Q' in French is pronounced the same as the word 'cul,' meaning 'ass.'
My favorite proposal is Le Coq Formel even if it’s a bit long. The simple Le Coq feels too meme-y.
So I guess that goes both ways :)
As a man, I hadn't thought of the potential problems for women in this sphere (quelle surprise); that is absolutely the strongest argument for change. We should all strive to be inclusive and it seems the leaders in the Coq community are taking that seriously, and should be applauded.
My two penneth worth on the variants that still include Coq in the name (like 'Le Coq', etc.) is that it'll just get shortened down to Coq in real-world use. English tends to shorten terms to the minimum word or phrase that still conveys meaning.
FTFY
It's just particularly noticable with English because the more people speak a language, the more people work on trimming out the fat (consciously or unconsciously).
Because women are more prudish than men? Or because the joke is about the male member? So if it was called "Qunt", it would be men that were clamouring for a name change?
Are you sure you’re not making sexist assumptions about women being prudish?
The article even says women have been harassed speaking about it.
Look I already said I think it's an awkward name for men and women, but this feels like a failure of imagination to me.
> This similarity has already led to some women turning away from Coq and others getting harassed when they said they were working on Coq
I guess the question is, why shouldn't the Coq project think about this kind of thing?
When time came for the 8th generation systems, all the nomenclature suddenly shifted to "gen8" instead of "g8" without much explanation offered.
Come to find out, "g8" is offensive slang for "cock" in Chinese. China being a huge market, HPE thought it better to change the entire naming scheme of their server line rather than deal with any potential blowback from naming their systems "g8".
Given this, "Coq" is clearly a fuqing problematic name, and unless it's absolutely intended to have the double meaning, it should probably be changed somehow.
A clear alternate pronounciation of "coke" (with optional circumflex), would seem easiest to implement. At least, try it for a while and see if it works?
i) If people is being harassed because of the name of their workplace, then the problem is the harasser. Changing the name of the workplace is a bit like victim shaming, in the sense that the real problem is the harasser.
ii) If people have difficulties talking about their workplace name, then I think it's people's problem.
Yes, but the connotation is arguably quite NSFW. If it would be named penis directly, it should not make a difference either, but it does. Throwing in "we should use cock!" in a meeting will get you glances at first and surely some more afterwards, even if you clarify.
Ask the companies named ISIS (there are quite a few) how the name worked out for them; same thing here.
> If people have difficulties talking about their workplace name, then I think it's people's problem.
Yes, but it is then, in turn, your problem, as you loose out on quite a few people - either because they don't want the trouble with the name or because it simply deters them. Marketing is extremely important.
In all things, there are limits - and "coq", as it is presently pronounced, is obviously breaching those limits, or the problem wouldn't be there.
Yes, but I'm not convinced this would actually take hold. The Voltswagen thread had a lot of discussion about this and quite a few were convinced that the "american" pronunciation is as valid as the canonical German one. So, in the end, it would probably remain "cock" for a lot of people.
> At least, try it for a while and see if it works?
A name change, even if only in pronunciation, is a rather large and conflicting change. Doing this twice looks like a recipe for disaster.
If after a while that resolves the problem or at least sufficiently minimises it, you're done.
If not, I think you have a clear go-ahead to make a big, breaking change.
This reminds me of the issue with the word "negro" (Spanish for black) in some schools of the USA. It seems some people couldn't understand that that word was there for centuries before the Atlantic Slave Trade.
Are we going to adapt every language to avoid negative connotations in English (or the common tongue of our era)? If you are an English speaker you should be used to pronounciation exceptions, being an almost no-rule pronunciation language. Pronounce it like you want ("coqi", "le coq" or whatever you want) but changing the name for all speakers (even the non-English ones)? That's a big no-no for me.
I'm pretty sure the people who named Coq knew exactly what they were doing. Feigning surprise at how it's interpreted is disingenuous.
Java is already pronounced "djava" in English, and "yava"/"iava" in several other European languages.
I assume the same for C++, C#, Awk, Python etc.
I mean I'm glad I don't have to speak "Cee-plus-plus" out loud much.
I think because most people won't. They'll go for the most obvious pronunciation. Especially as there's a brand called Le Coq Sportif, which has a pretty well known pronunciation.
First exposure to names of languages, libraries, etc. is often written on a screen - and so it could well be years before anyone actually speaks the word, but they have the pronunciation in their head, and that tends to stick.
If there are people in the community purposely ignorant of the French entomology and using the similarity to "cock" to troll or harass others does the project changing it's name even help? Those people are still present. Perhaps cutting off such an avenue does reduce toxicity but it feels like catering to the lowest common denominator. Is it too much to expect basic decency these days?
Not to mention the English normative focus. Have there been other large projects that felt the need to change their name because of connotations in languages other than English?
We already have CoC for Vim, and I see no problem with that.
I don't think this discussion has reached the point (yet) where it's simply about avoiding offence or getting bullied into a decision.
Depends on your viewpoint. If you have a small plugin or personal project like CoC, without any ambitions to reach many people, such a joke is fine in my book. But in this case, it seems to hinder the adoption and growth of the language, so it makes a lot of sense to switch to a less offensive name. Especially since the language seems to aim to get more widespread usage.
What dialect has "rooster" as slang for penis?
Nobody says "golang" in speech, that would sound idiotic. It's a tag for search engines, not for speaking.
The only thing new is the degree of performative offense by reactionary elites at people “getting offended” as a response to every complaint of substantive patterns of harm (not mere offense) as a distraction from actual problems.
maybe that's the issue – the obvious problems seem unsurmountable, so let's do just about anything else.
Parkinsons law on bikeshedding/triviality: the least relevant topic on the agenda gets the most attention.
While it was never renamed, GIMPs name has drawn objectors since well before 2016.
The only reason this is a big deal instead of routine like those is the current backlash against "PC culture" or "SJW"s.
What's wrong with people?
Edit: Literally the first two sentences:
> The name Coq comes from the French word for rooster, CoC (the Calculus of Constructions) and Thierry Coquand, one of the initial authors of Coq. But it is also close to the word "cock" which has a slang meaning that some English speakers consider offensive (it also means a male bird or the firing lever in a gun).
EDIT: the article is somewhat ambiguous on the subject, and I guess it's a bit subjective, but to me 'coke' sounds much closer to the French than the American 'cahck' at least.
Are people getting upset when they say "cogwheel" or "a small cog in a big wheel"?
Even assuming you mean “like that is pronounced in English”, its worth noting that there are at least three different first (or only, as some don’t provide more than one) pronunciations of the “Coq” in “Coq au Vin” in thr half-dozen English dictionaries I’ve just checked.)
No, its the fact that the vowel sound in “coq” does not usually occur in English, and is about equidistant from the ones in coke and cock, which are the more common in English; different English dictionaries give each of the three primary status. I can’t find any source with any variation in the final consonant sound, giving it consistently as voiceless (IPA “k”, like “cock”) not voiced (IPA “g”, like “cog”), both in English and French.
- in French, word coq
- in English, word cock
In English the "o" from "coke" sounds more like the way the letter "o" is pronounced in the alphabet, which is slightly different from the "o" in "cock".
The French "o" isn't like any of these; I believe in the case of "coq" it's pronounced /o/, i.e. the first half of the English /oʊ/. Your tongue shouldn't move while you say it. Pronouncing this single vowel like the English /oʊ/ is a very common mistake that English speakers make in French (or Spanish, Portuguese etc.) - it's a distinctively English sound that gives you away as a native English speaker.
Edit: I found out there is a chart with sound on the IPA website[0]!
[0]: https://www.internationalphoneticalphabet.org/ipa-sounds/ipa...
The sources I find mostly say /ɔ/, which is one step more open than /o/
I face this with German too, people might speak a dialect or have a local accent but are also familiar with Hochdeutsch.
English doesn't have a standard body as far as I know, and pronunciation vary a lot between different countries, so that may be different.
It'd be wherever it wouldn't be a dialect, which to my mind is obviously british english. Other variations are regional dialects born of distance and time.
Not that well, at least for me, I think I know most cases where it changes from my local accent, but I would struggle to emit the "correct" sound. It wasn't that long ago that I learnt that "é, ais, er, et, ez" were not supposed to be pronounced the same, and I cannot tell how each one is supposed to be pronounced. I would say people from Switzerland are probably more aware of the difference, because it is acknowledged that it is slightly different, whereas I have never heard anyone tell me that I wasn't learning "proper/standard" French and that it's "supposed" to be pronounced differently.
Btw, I was 16 when I learned that "un" (like in the number 1), "en", and "an" have different pronunciations and that I pronounced them incorrectly my entire life! I still have to force myself from time to time to make a clear distinction.
Personally, I'm very happy that they are changing the name.
Full quote which you managed to misrepresent by "helpfully" cutting text out.
So, women were turned away, and others were harassed.
So I guess that's exactly what's wrong with people: they will frequently misunderstand things and then spread those misunderstandings.
I think that makes a big difference in the interpretation, not that it should make a big difference in action taken.
- Hey, what are you up to?
- Working in Coq
- Hu-hu you said "cock"
Presumably any adult would be aware that the name is "funny" and would be careful when replying and say something like "working on formal proofs", "programming" or "maths" instead.
In terms of Coq, it's the developers addressing the issue, not even a third person. That in itself should be enough to not dismiss it outright.
And if you were really affected by the word git, you would understand the issue of the Coq developers. Since you feigned ignorance in your first response, we can conclude, you're just arguing in bad faith.
You should really start to regard other people's feelings as something not necessary to be hurt, if it could easily be avoided.