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Comment by isodev | Hacker News Reader

It’s time for a new name. “gimp” may be semantically correct but it hardly prepares one for a “friendly and powerful graphics editing tool”.

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This is posted every time this software comes up here. I don't know where you people are from, but in my dialect (Eastern US, Gen Z) "gimp" is just not a particularly rude word. It's used primarily as a verb, meaning "to reduce in efficacy, to hamper." Obviously it has it's noun definition too, bit if you think that has anything to do with the lack of adoption of this software you're kidding yourself, you gits.

In places where people speak the other flavours of English, reading the name goes a bit like this:

The first thing that comes to mind is a slang term for someone who is physically disabled or limps. The second thing is that it refers to an insult (someone weak or foolish). Then one starts to wonder if it's a bondage reference... unless one is given additional context, one can never get to a design tool out of this. You wouldn't want people to overhear you say it and misunderstand the situation.

> You wouldn't want people to overhear you say it and misunderstand the situation.

Misunderstand what? Painting with GIMP?

It's an acronym. Maybe I'm completely socially inept, but I don't see at all how it would be embarrassing to explain even to close family that I'm using GNU Image Manipulation Program. People are not going to overhear me and think I'm editing images with someone disabled or wearing a ball gag and straitjacket. It just doesn't happen outside Jim Carrey movies.

Let’s try a scientific experiment. Go to a bar and start calling people GIMP’s and analyze the reactions it receives.

You could make the same argument about GNOME

That deserves a discussion on its own, including the silly foot logo.

What about "Professional Image Manipulation Program"?

Digital Image Correction Kit

Touch-up & Image Transformation Studio

Extraneous and unnecessary words for the sake of satisfying an acronym. Let’s just call it Image Editor or IE for short.

It's fairly idiotic at this stage that this has never been changed. Highly damaging to the products outward appearance.

Then, when the announcement of the name change is on the HN frontpage, tens of HNers will post their anger "the name was already well-known, this is a marketing disaster!! They should know better!"

Damned if you do, damned if you don't.

Yes but those people would be wrong in this case.

I don't think it's highly damaging. It's an acronym. Is BBC's name highly damaging?

Why would it be? I can't think of a single meaning of BBC which translates to an insult. GIMP on the other hand has more than one meanings as an insult (not even an acronym).

Uhhh BBC also stands for something else, and that second meaning is a very common term on the internet.

Describing one’s … favourite desert? (HN is American so not sure we can say the word here) doesn’t constitute an insult - people say it all the time irl. But you’re also right that BBC wouldn’t be a good name for a design tool either.

Naming things is hard, someone should setup a focus group :)

Are you thinking of the Coventry University Netball Team? (again).

Try this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BBC_(sexual_slang)

Definitely came after the original BBC being established, and definitely is orders of magnitude less known than the sexual slang variant. So yeah, the Gimp comparison doesn't stand, at all.

BBC isn't a great comparison - it's an initialism, not read or said as a word.

I can't think of an acronym example though.

And the embarrassing meaning that some might attribute to "BBC" is also an initialism.

You're laughing but when I worked on a search engine, it was a serious question which videos should we display if the search query is just "BBC".

The prudent approach prevailed for a hundred different reasons but online user metrics weren't one of them. Apparently people were not very fond of the British Broadcasting Corporation, especially outside of the angloshpere.

From what I gather, the people running the project don't mind the name, and that is basically to what this boils down to. I too think it's a stupid name, and that the project would be better off with a rename, but if being less "idiotic" or whatever is not the project goal, then they are no so idiotic after all, no? Idiotic would be to self-sabotage with the name, like failure to get into app stores because of policy or something, and still not changing the name, or trying to fight the perception of "gimp" as a word, or anything like that. But overall, I think situation is settled and the people running the show are consistent.

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