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Path: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au!newshost.carno.net.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!munnari.OZ.AU!news.ecn.uoknor.edu!feed1.news.erols.com!howland.erols.net!news.bbnplanet.com!cam-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!uunet!in1.uu.net!van-bc!news.mindlink.net!nntp.portal.ca!cynic.portal.ca!not-for-mail From: cjs@cynic.portal.ca (Curt Sampson) Newsgroups: comp.unix.misc,comp.unix.bsd.misc,alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: On the Naming of UNIX Things Date: 16 Nov 1996 12:23:25 -0800 Organization: Internet Portal Services, Inc. Lines: 22 Message-ID: <56l7rt$doq@cynic.portal.ca> References: <55vhpf$q3o@mail1.wg.waii.com> <56jl24$hhg@ordeal.cts.com> <56kli3$395@kirin.wwa.com> <kbibb.848172436@shellx> NNTP-Posting-Host: cynic.portal.ca Xref: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au comp.unix.misc:26479 comp.unix.bsd.misc:1530 alt.folklore.computers:124711 In article <kbibb.848172436@shellx>, Ken Bibb <kbibb@best.com> wrote: >In <56kli3$395@kirin.wwa.com> jeverett@wwa.com (John Everett) writes: > >>As I've posted here before, DAEMON was pronounced deemon (not daymon) when it >>was implemented on the PDP-10; back when UNIX was just a gleam in Ken >>Thompson's eye. > >But daemon is derived from the greek "daimon" (benevolent spirit). >Hence the correct (greek) pronounciation has the dipthong. In which case it's neither /DEEmon/ nor /DAYmon/, but /DIEmon/, in ancient Greek, or with a short e, /DEHmon/, in modern. (Actually, the stress on that last one may be backwards; modern Greek has merged the pronunciations of a lot of the dipthongs and now uses stress to determine which word the speaker is saying.) Oh, for an ISO standard character set for IPA.... cjs -- Curt Sampson cjs@portal.ca Info at http://www.portal.ca/ Internet Portal Services, Inc. Vancouver, BC (604) 257-9400 De gustibus, aut bene aut nihil.