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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!news.eng.convex.com!newsrelay.netins.net!newsfeed.dacom.co.kr!usenet.kornet.nm.kr!howland.erols.net!news.mathworks.com!newscaster-1.mcast.net!informatik.uni-bremen.de!cs.tu-berlin.de!unlisys!desert!heaven7.snafu.de!usenet From: Martin Ibert <martini@heaven7.snafu.de> Newsgroups: comp.unix.misc,comp.unix.bsd.misc,alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: On the Naming of UNIX Things Date: 22 Nov 1996 13:56:42 +0100 Organization: The Seventh Heaven, Berlin, Germany Lines: 32 Sender: martini@livorno.sky.bln.sub.org Message-ID: <uf4tiiuw39.fsf@livorno.sky.bln.sub.org> References: <55vhpf$q3o@mail1.wg.waii.com> <steve.847913388@fastnet.prd.co.uk> <328bb47a.2221749@news.msn.fullfeed.com> <56n415$5k6@news.ece.nwu.edu> <mjl-2111961156310001@mjl3825.draper.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: livorno.sky.bln.sub.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-Newsreader: Gnus v5.3/Emacs 19.34 Xref: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au comp.unix.misc:26616 comp.unix.bsd.misc:1590 alt.folklore.computers:125053 mjl@draper.com (mj leblanc) writes: > ...and then there are those of us who've been forced to take Latin in the past. > > The Latin dipthong 'ae' is pronounced, roughly, as /eye/, therefore > "daemon" would be pronounced d(eye)mon. > > If I try to pronounce it any other way, I half expect to be brutally > whipped by avenging nuns. Oops, wrong classical language. It's *Greek*, not Latin. But of course you are right as to that the correct pronounciation should be d(eye)mon. Unfortunately, you English-speakers differ from just about every other speaker-community as to what phonems the vowels should represent. (There are differences among the others, of course, but they are most likely on the sound value of "weak" vowels like e and u, and diphtongs.) Anyone who speaks German, Italian, Spanish, Finnish ... can try to rapidly pronounce an "a" and an "e", and you will hear yourself saying something quite close to the English word "eye". (The "a" is what you English-speakers would write "ah", but you seem to be incapable of pronouncing a long "e".) -- | Martin Ibert/Fürstenweg 11/D-13589 Berlin-Spandau; martini@heaven7.snafu.de | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | Jeder Popel fährt 'nen Opel, jeder Affe fährt 'nen Ford, o | | Jeder Blödmann fährt 'nen Porsche, jeder Arsch 'nen Audi Sport, ./\ | | Jeder Spinner fährt 'nen Manta, jeder Dödel Jaguar, _//|_. | | Nur Genießer fahren Fahrrad und sind immer schneller da -- SK/TK (_)`(_) | PGP key and Geek code available on my home page <http://www.snafu.de/~martini/>