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Comment by zheng | Hacker News Reader

Thanks, while I think the pronunciation is lame and confusing, I grow tired of explaining to people that it is actually correct, they aren't called "trys" or "treys".

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Pronunciation can be a very individual or regional thing when it comes to technical abbreviations. I just finished watching the Channel9 GoingNative talks (C++), and was surprised to find a couple of the most respected C++ guys pronounce 'ptr' as 'put-er' (not 'putter') instead of 'pointer'.

Personally I'll continue to pronounce it as 'try'. It has, at least, fewer conflicting interpretations in a programming context. When I say 'tree', people will probably assume I mean a binary tree, not a radix tree. So, if I'm not going at 30% light speed, I'll just say that.

Mispronouncing variables is great fun. We have lots of "txn_XXX" which we pronounce "texan_XXX", and "le_XXX" (short for "leafentry XXX", as in "le_key"), which always make us sound like we're mocking French people.

Now you're getting it. I also pronounce 'char' from C as if it's short for charred, rather than character. Principally because I find it easier easier to say 'char star' with that vocalisation. I know one guy who, if speaking quickly, would pronounce 'char* sugar' as 'caster sugar'... come to think of it, I'm not sure how Americans pronounce 'caster', but in the UK it's car-stir sugar. Not 'Casper', as in the friendly ghost, but with a 't'.

I've never had a problem with people using different pronunciations. It certainly keeps talking about code fresh.

cache is a fun one (cash or kay-sh?). Most Australians I know (and possibly people from the UK too) say it as "cash"

Under what rules of pronunciation would it be Kay-sh?

I recognize pronunciation is more about exceptions than rules, but even so...

Heh. When we have a variable name with a question mark to denote a boolean, as in "ready?", we pronounce the question mark "what" like an old-school English gentleman—so, "readywhat", or rather: "Ready, what?" It still cracks me up sometimes.

I was taught by Evi Nemeth (requiescat in pace) that trie pronounced like "try" and to use it that way.

The reason is because the name comes from the word "reTRIEval," which was a pretty dumb move in the first place.

The great thing about pronunciation is that whatever most people say, wins. I'm going to keep using the pronunciation that rhymes with "dyes" so we can avoid confusion with the more general structure.

They are called "trys" because that's how most people pronounce it.

I just call them all radix trees.

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