6 ms·

> chmod: as one syllable.. rhymes with 'nod' This is easy to do for many? In my experience, Anglo-Saxons can seldom pronounce “GNU” in one syllable, but they

> chmod: as one syllable.. rhymes with 'nod' This is easy to do for many? In my experience, Anglo-Saxons can seldom pronounce “GNU” in one syllable, but they can this?

danaliv 6y ago
Yup. It’s /shmod/!
- Daneel_ 6y ago
  That's... two syllables.
  - danaliv 6y ago
    It isn’t. There’s no vowel sound between sh and m. Think schmear. Onset: shm. Nucleus: o. Coda: d. One syllable.
    - Daneel_ 6y ago
      Forgive me, but I don't understand how you can pronounce it as one syllable. I would have to pronounce /shmod/ as either /sh-mod/ or /shm-od/, making it two syllables. I'm happy to be corrected, I just physically can't understand how to pronounce it as one syllable.
      - koolba 6y ago
        It’s pronounced similar to schmaltz: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schmaltz https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schmaltz The trick is one continuous motion of pursing your lips, closing and then opening your mouth as you roll the constants together.
      - danaliv 6y ago
        I hear ya. It’s not a terribly common consonant cluster. (In fact I think all English words that start with s[c]hm are Yiddish loanwords, but don’t quote me on that.) Try pushing your lips forward before making any sound, and drawing them back+together as you make the sh sound. It’ll come out as a single shm sound.
      - alisonatwork 6y ago
        If you think about a lisping pronunciation of smoke, sounding like "shmoke", this is how I imagine it would sound. One syllable. I wonder if the grandparent is French, because I would never have considered to pronounce chmod like this. Then again, I say C H mod and C H own, which apparently isn't the standard pronunciation, so what do I know!
        danaliv 6y ago
        White-bread American Midwesterner. :-) Not sure where I picked this pronunciation up. I think what I’ve learned today is that no one pronounces any of these words even remotely the same! ...and while we’re at it, let’s do “char.”
        koolba 6y ago
        First half of carrot.
        pacaro 6y ago
        As in chard, but maybe we should all say it as in chardonnay
        indigodaddy 6y ago
        I pronounce chmod and chown same as you do. Although sometimes I'll pronounce chown as one syllable... not sure the when or the why..
        pacaro 6y ago
        Ha! This is great. I would have loved to have had this insight when I worked on Midori, at one point there was an M# keyword shmutable (for shared mutable objects) and one objection was the concern (beyond the obvious objections to silly keywords) that if said as sh'mutable that it sounded very close to shimmutable which would be a critically bad confusion
    - geofft 6y ago
      Y'all would probably enjoy Wikipedia's discussions of English phonotactics: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phonotactics#English_phonotactics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phonotactics#English_phonotact... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_phonology#Phonotactics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_phonology#Phonotactics /ʃm/ is not a legal onset in native English. (Let alone /tʃm/, which is how I pronounce "chmod" - two syllables, /tʃə 'mɔːd/.) "Schmear" is a Yiddish loanword coming from German, where /ʃm/ is perfectly legal. So it's pronounceable by the human mouth, it's just a little awkward for English speakers. /sm/ and /ʃr/ are both legal in English, so you might think of it as something like those. Can you pronounce "smear" or "shrine" as one syllable? (I'm not sure /tʃm/ is valid in any language - words or names that start with "chm" seem to be Polish/Russian words transliterating /xm/.)
      - Gare 6y ago
        > (I'm not sure /tʃm/ is valid in any language - words or names that start with "chm" seem to be Polish/Russian words transliterating /xm/.) Oh it sure is in Croatian (and other Slavic languages), "tʃ" is written as "č". We even have slang words like "čmr-lji-ti" [t͡ʃmrʎiti]. "r" (rolling r) can function as a vowel.
        Blikkentrekker 6y ago
        “vzkvět” is a word in Czech that is pronounced in one syllable, exactly how it's spelled, of course. The Dutch word “striktst” is of course also pronounced exactly how it's spelled, and in one syllable.
        hashmush 6y ago
        Or Swedish "västkustskt" (lit. west coast-ish), where "kustskt" is one syllable. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swedish_phonology#Phonotactics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swedish_phonology#Phonotactics On-topic, I pronounce chmod as one syllable with "sh", like schmuck.
- Blikkentrekker 6y ago
  Oh, I thought it was /tS m O d/. /tS/ is quite a different story due to it being an affricative.
Daneel_ 6y ago
I have no idea how to pronounce this as one syllable, it's always been che-mod to me. Chown is one syllable though, I agree there.
- usr1106 6y ago
  I refuse to break my tongue and just say change-mod. But I have heard other variations. Chown on the other seems straight forward as one syllable.
- mocar 6y ago
  Cho-oon is one syllable? No way :)
  - ghayes 6y ago
    I, personally, pronounce this as /ʧəʊn/ in one syllable [onset=ʧ, nucleus=əʊ, coda=n]
elric 6y ago
> Anglo-Saxons can seldom pronounce “GNU” in one syllable That's ... weird. It's pretty similar to "knee", but with an "oo" sound. Are you saying people pronounce "ge-noo"?
- dj_mc_merlin 6y ago
  Hehe, the point is the "g" or "k" should not be silent if you actually want to pronounce "GNU" or "knee".. but in English they generally are. In other languages the sound produced is a more guttural but fully enunciated word (if I knew more linguistics I'd find the international phonetics for it).
- Blikkentrekker 6y ago
  The <k> in “knee” is silent; it is pronounced /n i/, not /k n i/. The reason this cluster is so difficult for Anglo-Saxon is exactly because English lacks it; it historically had it, which explains the many words that are written as such, for etymological reasons. Even the actual word “gnu" is pronounced /n u/, not /g n u/, but the “GNU operating system” is typically pronounced /g @ 'n u/, in two syllables, with stress on the second.
chrisseaton 6y ago
> In my experience, Anglo-Saxons can seldom pronounce “GNU” in one syllable It’s just pronounced ‘new’ isn’t it? How many syllabus can you fit in that?
- danemy 6y ago
  It's supposed to be pronounced with a hard G [1]. [1]: https://www.gnu.org/gnu/pronunciation.html https://www.gnu.org/gnu/pronunciation.html
  - chrisseaton 6y ago
    I feel like quite a lot of people in the Free Software community somewhat enjoy creating things that seem to deliberately be designed to trip up people who aren't in-the-know. Seems like a terrible way to run an advocacy movement.

> chmod: as one syllable.. rhymes with 'nod' This is easy to do for many? In my experience, Anglo-Saxons can seldom pronounce “GNU” in one syllable, but they can this?

danaliv 6y ago

Yup. It’s /shmod/!

Daneel_ 6y ago
That's... two syllables.
- danaliv 6y ago
  It isn’t. There’s no vowel sound between sh and m. Think schmear. Onset: shm. Nucleus: o. Coda: d. One syllable.
  - Daneel_ 6y ago
    Forgive me, but I don't understand how you can pronounce it as one syllable. I would have to pronounce /shmod/ as either /sh-mod/ or /shm-od/, making it two syllables. I'm happy to be corrected, I just physically can't understand how to pronounce it as one syllable.
    - koolba 6y ago
      It’s pronounced similar to schmaltz: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schmaltz https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schmaltz The trick is one continuous motion of pursing your lips, closing and then opening your mouth as you roll the constants together.
    - danaliv 6y ago
      I hear ya. It’s not a terribly common consonant cluster. (In fact I think all English words that start with s[c]hm are Yiddish loanwords, but don’t quote me on that.) Try pushing your lips forward before making any sound, and drawing them back+together as you make the sh sound. It’ll come out as a single shm sound.
    - alisonatwork 6y ago
      If you think about a lisping pronunciation of smoke, sounding like "shmoke", this is how I imagine it would sound. One syllable. I wonder if the grandparent is French, because I would never have considered to pronounce chmod like this. Then again, I say C H mod and C H own, which apparently isn't the standard pronunciation, so what do I know!
      - danaliv 6y ago
        White-bread American Midwesterner. :-) Not sure where I picked this pronunciation up. I think what I’ve learned today is that no one pronounces any of these words even remotely the same! ...and while we’re at it, let’s do “char.”
        koolba 6y ago
        First half of carrot.
        pacaro 6y ago
        As in chard, but maybe we should all say it as in chardonnay
      - indigodaddy 6y ago
        I pronounce chmod and chown same as you do. Although sometimes I'll pronounce chown as one syllable... not sure the when or the why..
      - pacaro 6y ago
        Ha! This is great. I would have loved to have had this insight when I worked on Midori, at one point there was an M# keyword shmutable (for shared mutable objects) and one objection was the concern (beyond the obvious objections to silly keywords) that if said as sh'mutable that it sounded very close to shimmutable which would be a critically bad confusion
  - geofft 6y ago
    Y'all would probably enjoy Wikipedia's discussions of English phonotactics: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phonotactics#English_phonotactics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phonotactics#English_phonotact... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_phonology#Phonotactics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_phonology#Phonotactics /ʃm/ is not a legal onset in native English. (Let alone /tʃm/, which is how I pronounce "chmod" - two syllables, /tʃə 'mɔːd/.) "Schmear" is a Yiddish loanword coming from German, where /ʃm/ is perfectly legal. So it's pronounceable by the human mouth, it's just a little awkward for English speakers. /sm/ and /ʃr/ are both legal in English, so you might think of it as something like those. Can you pronounce "smear" or "shrine" as one syllable? (I'm not sure /tʃm/ is valid in any language - words or names that start with "chm" seem to be Polish/Russian words transliterating /xm/.)
    - Gare 6y ago
      > (I'm not sure /tʃm/ is valid in any language - words or names that start with "chm" seem to be Polish/Russian words transliterating /xm/.) Oh it sure is in Croatian (and other Slavic languages), "tʃ" is written as "č". We even have slang words like "čmr-lji-ti" [t͡ʃmrʎiti]. "r" (rolling r) can function as a vowel.
      - Blikkentrekker 6y ago
        “vzkvět” is a word in Czech that is pronounced in one syllable, exactly how it's spelled, of course. The Dutch word “striktst” is of course also pronounced exactly how it's spelled, and in one syllable.
        hashmush 6y ago
        Or Swedish "västkustskt" (lit. west coast-ish), where "kustskt" is one syllable. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swedish_phonology#Phonotactics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swedish_phonology#Phonotactics On-topic, I pronounce chmod as one syllable with "sh", like schmuck.
Blikkentrekker 6y ago
Oh, I thought it was /tS m O d/. /tS/ is quite a different story due to it being an affricative.

Daneel_ 6y ago

I have no idea how to pronounce this as one syllable, it's always been che-mod to me. Chown is one syllable though, I agree there.

usr1106 6y ago
I refuse to break my tongue and just say change-mod. But I have heard other variations. Chown on the other seems straight forward as one syllable.
mocar 6y ago
Cho-oon is one syllable? No way :)
- ghayes 6y ago
  I, personally, pronounce this as /ʧəʊn/ in one syllable [onset=ʧ, nucleus=əʊ, coda=n]

elric 6y ago

> Anglo-Saxons can seldom pronounce “GNU” in one syllable That's ... weird. It's pretty similar to "knee", but with an "oo" sound. Are you saying people pronounce "ge-noo"?

dj_mc_merlin 6y ago
Hehe, the point is the "g" or "k" should not be silent if you actually want to pronounce "GNU" or "knee".. but in English they generally are. In other languages the sound produced is a more guttural but fully enunciated word (if I knew more linguistics I'd find the international phonetics for it).
Blikkentrekker 6y ago
The <k> in “knee” is silent; it is pronounced /n i/, not /k n i/. The reason this cluster is so difficult for Anglo-Saxon is exactly because English lacks it; it historically had it, which explains the many words that are written as such, for etymological reasons. Even the actual word “gnu" is pronounced /n u/, not /g n u/, but the “GNU operating system” is typically pronounced /g @ 'n u/, in two syllables, with stress on the second.

chrisseaton 6y ago

> In my experience, Anglo-Saxons can seldom pronounce “GNU” in one syllable It’s just pronounced ‘new’ isn’t it? How many syllabus can you fit in that?

danemy 6y ago
It's supposed to be pronounced with a hard G [1]. [1]: https://www.gnu.org/gnu/pronunciation.html https://www.gnu.org/gnu/pronunciation.html
- chrisseaton 6y ago
  I feel like quite a lot of people in the Free Software community somewhat enjoy creating things that seem to deliberately be designed to trip up people who aren't in-the-know. Seems like a terrible way to run an advocacy movement.