The hell you say...

[andrewducker]

[Poll #1439989]

Comments

[pisica.livejournal.com]

I always said LIN-ux. *hides in shame*

[hawkida.livejournal.com]

Oh, that's what that meant! I thought it was something to do with "lennox" possibly and couln't find a context.

I've been meaning to do a poll along these lines since listening to a report on Radio 4 last week:

Cocaine:

coke-ane
or
cock-ane

[pisica.livejournal.com]

That's just a guess I made after a) sounding it out and b) cross-referencing the sound with the sort of topics Andy usually discusses here. :)

I don't think I've ever heard 'cock-ane'!

[andrewducker]

cock-ane???? Some people are just weird!

[sttatus-quo.livejournal.com]

I do also.

[pisica.livejournal.com]

Huzzah!

Also, I am wondering if the economics divide (currently 'me' versus 'everyone else') is a US/UK thing. *awaits more data*

[andrewducker]

See the link in the question...

[pisica.livejournal.com]

*does so*

Doesn't really answer my question, though. If both pronunciations are used in unspecified English, and one is preferred over the other in British English, the question 'is there a preference for one or t'other in American English?' remains unanswered.

Of course, since I don't know the background of most of the people who are on your f-list, I have no way to correctly interpret the data anyway....

[sttatus-quo.livejournal.com]

It may be an BE/AE thing. I know I have to stare at the floor or shut my eyes when listening until I develop an "ear" when I'm in the UK. My friends probably have to do the same thing to me. Being a southerner (US) adds a whole other linguistic layer, I imagine.

[ladysisyphus.livejournal.com]

Seconded! But I learned how to say it from a bunch of geeks who all say it the same way, so ... I don't know?

[jinxremoving.livejournal.com]

Me too! I figured the geeks would get it right.

[aliiis.livejournal.com]

Yes, me too! Although I think I said 'lie-nux' before I had ever heard anyone else saying it (LIN-ux) and assumed they must be right.

[chuma.livejournal.com]

That's because you are sensible *nod* And also that is the same comment I was gonna make :)

[miramon.livejournal.com]

That's because that's the (arguably) correct pronunciation - one of my early copies of Linux came with a sound file of Linus Torvalds speaking the word in an attempt to stop arguments (he pronounced it something like Lihn-ucks).

[meaningrequired.livejournal.com]

OH! I didn't even realise thats what the word was! I thought it was one of Andy's crazy Andyworld words!

[andrewducker]

Ahem.

:-p

[ishkhara.livejournal.com]

*lmao*

[ashfae.livejournal.com]

Me too!

[cheekbones3.livejournal.com]

Me too.

I also say eck-onomics and ick-o-nomist. Roughly.

[olliecrafoord.livejournal.com]

Same here!

[dapperscavenger.livejournal.com]

Hmmm.. it's more like eck-eh-nom-ics and u-rayn-us

[bracknellexile.livejournal.com]

I thought it was echo-gnomics - reflected sound of underground spirits and all that.

[anton-p-nym.livejournal.com]

Truth be told, I use both listed pronunciations of "economics" interchangeably and without thinking. (Maybe a slight bias to short-e, but still roughly 50/50.)

-- Steve shifted his pronunciation of Uranus because he was tired of space-based butt jokes.

[bracknellexile.livejournal.com]

Damn, why can't I tick all the boxes in the poll?

Cars are ee-kuh-nom-ikal but the current eck-o-nom-ic climate sucks.

When I was a kid it was your-anus, now it's yew-ran-us (rather than u-ran-oos which implies a soft "u" rather than a "y" sound)

And Lie-nux and lee-nux are pretty much interchangeable in my conversations.

[atreic.livejournal.com]

I say 'home eck-o-nomics' for cooking but 'ee-kuh-nomics' for finance stuff. But the people doing it are eck-onomists.

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

LIHN-uks. (short 'i')

[communicator.livejournal.com]

Yeah it's from the name Linus, pronounced with a short 'i' (like 'chin us')

[zz]

but in english, the name linus is pronounced lie-nus. :>

[communicator.livejournal.com]

It's from Linus Torvalds, who is Finnish but of Swedish ethnicity. He pronounces his name like spin-us. Though to be fair, I think Torvalds was named after Linus Pauling, who I think did pronounce his name the American-English way, like spine-us.

[channelpenguin.livejournal.com]

I was certainly going on the name Linus - pronounced as you depict.

[dougs.livejournal.com]

You forget that we group theorists pronounce "Lie" as "Lee".

[marrog.livejournal.com]

Oh God. I should know better than to read the comments on a linguistics post.

[paddie-gal.livejournal.com]

Speaking of "let's call the whole thing off" - there was a girl on a talent show I watched, can't remember if it was UK or US, I think UK. she'd practiced that song specifically for her audition, but had only ever heard herself sing it - she'd never heard a recording of it.

So she sang "You say potato (pohtayto) and I say potato (pohtayto), you say tomato (tomahto) and I say tomato (tomahto)...." etc - pronouncing them the same way each time. She had NO clue why the judges were laughing.

[andrewhickey.livejournal.com]

John Fortune did that as a sketch in the 70s...

And the answer for 3 is guh-nu.

[xquiq.livejournal.com]

Can't answer the Linux one as like others, I pronounce it with a short 'i'.

[the-locster.livejournal.com]

Linus says it's Lee-nucks
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5IfHm6R5le0

[andrewducker]

That sounded like "li-nucks" to me - although his name can be pronounced Lee-nus if he's speaking Finnish, apparently :->

[darkoshi]

yer-ae-niss
lin-icks