6 ms·

Renaming Coq

17 points by sidechaining 5y ago

junon 5y ago
I always thought it was Co-Q. I thought surely no way it was pronounced "cock". Welp. I think this is a good move.
- Jiocus 5y ago
  They do feature a rooster or cock in their logo. The current name makes me think of A. Le Coq, an Estonian brewery. Hopefully, my association will have no impact on their naming decision :)
  - junon 5y ago
    I know, and despite me being the first to notice this in just about any scenario, ai didn't put the two together until I saw this. Maybe I should sleep more.
- ziml77 5y ago
  My assumption was that they were using the French word for rooster and that it was intended to be pronounced that way. But maybe that still has the same issue? Is "coq" used to mean "penis" in French?
  - throwaway81523 5y ago
    Coq is "rooster" in French, keeping with INRIA's tradition of naming programming languages after animals, and pronounced approximately "coke". E.g. "coq au vin" (rooster with wine) is a standard French chicken dish consisting of what it sounds like. Coq (the program) is at least partly named after Thierry and Catarina Coquand, who worked on the Calculus of Constructions (the type theory used in Coq), and maybe also CoC (calculus of constructions, as mentioned). It gets worse: a standard technique for proving correctness of imperative programs is called Hoare Logic, after C.A.R. Hoare, the inventor of Quicksort. And of course there is an implementation of Hoare logic in Coq. I was asked a while back to give a talk about this stuff at work. It's maybe a relief that it didn't happen, since I dreaded having to say these names in today's environment. My plan was to put the slides up first (with the names and their origins on them), before saying the names out loud. I don't think "coq" is slang for penis in French, though my French is at best rudimentary. I'm familiar with "verge" ("rod") and a few similar terms being used that way in French, but the English connotation of Coq's name is coincidental, I think.
    - touisteur 5y ago
      It's not slang for anything except someone far too proud of himself (yes, 'him'). And it's really not pronounced like 'coke'. It's cock but without the stress on both 'k' sounds, I don't know how to explain any other way than 'soft k'. It's also the name for eggshell, and if you've never had 'oeuf à la coque' with bread you're missing something (mostly an half-cooked egg eaten with a spoon, but what's the point of fully cooking an egg anyway...). Don't know if it factored in. I'm not sure the pun is incidental, people like cute names with multiple interpretations. One other thing is that the rooster is kind of the national mascot. Here you'll hear someone shout 'cocorico' (rather mockingly) when some frenchman of woman realizes a feat. And there's a lot of self deprecation 'round here about the French being like roosters: feet in shit, and still blaring pride and moral lessons and thinking we're still a world power, to all who'll hear it. Our footballers have a rooster on their jersey I think, and you'll find many people here named Lecoq. I think the 90s were a different, less PC time and the recent wave of indignation about schoolboys' jokes hadn't reached our shores, and most people here didn't speak that much English, even less the 'bad' words. Not sure they expected the thing to become so popular then...
deadite 5y ago
Well, there go all the PCJ jokes :(
beermonster 5y ago
I used to get strange looks when I'd recommend people use 'The GIMP'.
Proven 5y ago
It's a shit move. Three letters, easy to remember. Great name. Some busybody will claim moral victory and - thanks to search & replace commits - call themselves a developer. Big step for the mankind! Recent examples of projects with lousy names: - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26902430 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26902430 - self-explanatory - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27088377 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27088377 - when I see this one I think I have flies crawling on my screen. WTF...
jobigoud 5y ago
The ubiquitous computing term "bit" means cock in French, should it be changed as well? /s
- jjgreen 5y ago
  bite, no?
  - Zababa 5y ago
    "bit" (the english word) is pronounced exactly like "bite" (the french word), \bit\. The funny thing is that we often use "octet" to refer to bytes (which are pronounced /baɪt/ so no problems here) but we have no alternative for bit.
    - 8fGTBjZxBcHq 5y ago
      I don't know where you learned French or English for that matter but in my pretty mainstream accents English "bit" and French "bite" are not pronounced very similarly. I can't imagine a competent speaker confusing them.
      - Zababa 5y ago
        I'm a native French, and the french wiktionary seems to agree with me https://fr.wiktionary.org/wiki/bite https://fr.wiktionary.org/wiki/bite https://fr.wiktionary.org/wiki/bit https://fr.wiktionary.org/wiki/bit : Both are pronounced \bit\. You can listen to the pronunciation and it's exactly the same. I remember a few jokes around this in university. I've also found this where a few people suggest pronouncing "bit" exactly like "bite". I don't really know what else to say other that I'm French, went through university in France and we had this confusion.
        8fGTBjZxBcHq 5y ago
        Huh interesting. Must just be an accent thing. I have a southern US accent in English and American accent with SW France influences in French. To me they aren't that similar but I do see how they could be. You're the native speaker though so I don't really have a leg to stand on here.
lokr 5y ago
It is misguided to ban all homonyms that offend English speakers. How would you even do it in practice? 1) The last name of the famous German philosopher Immanuel Kant is pronounced like "cunt". How do they give a philosophy Kant course in the US? 2) Why do French girls have to say "bit twiddling" but American girls need to be protected from "Coq"? 3) The reason for the rename initiative is apparently a misunderstanding by an Uber driver when hearing the word. I'd humbly suggest not to use the word in a cab, just as you wouldn't say "I'm taking a Kant course in college" in a cab. Context matters. 4) It is not up to Americans to eradicate European words in European projects.
- kangalioo 5y ago
  1) The last name of Kant can't be retrospectively changed, plus the field of philosophy is not nearly as English-centric as computer science. 2) The language of computer science is English. A technical word being offensive in English has much more weight than being offensive in another language, because it affects so much more people. 3) Yes, ideally, people would abstain from snickering about the unintended sound of Coq in conversations. Unfortunately, that is just not happening. "harassment or awkward situations, reports about students (notably women) who ended up not learning / using Coq because of its name." You will not be able to completely eradicate all those awkward situations involving "Coq" by pointing out that "context matters". 4) Coq is very widely used in an English context, seeing as computer science itself is largely English. When (presumably) the majority of users of a project is American, it does make sense to cater to them to some extent. We should not downplay the absolutely real problems that Coq's current name causes.
  - ballpen 5y ago
    Many open source projects started in Europe in the 1990s and had mostly European contributors. When they became famous, US corporations started monetizing them, buying contributors and slowly dictated everything. Languages like Python, which started in Europe and have at least 75% non-US contributions, are completely governed in the US. European and Asian opinions are ignored and sometimes derided, all while pretending to foster an "inclusive" environment. Projects moving to GitHub have caused many contributors to stop. No one cares, because the "right people" use GitHub and the others don't matter. Perhaps Academia is isolated from these issues to some extent, but make no mistake: In the current climate a renaming is highly political; in my opinion French students should revolt to protect their identity, it is the straw that breaks the Caml's back.

Renaming Coq

17 points by sidechaining 5y ago

junon 5y ago

I always thought it was Co-Q. I thought surely no way it was pronounced "cock". Welp. I think this is a good move.

Jiocus 5y ago
They do feature a rooster or cock in their logo. The current name makes me think of A. Le Coq, an Estonian brewery. Hopefully, my association will have no impact on their naming decision :)
- junon 5y ago
  I know, and despite me being the first to notice this in just about any scenario, ai didn't put the two together until I saw this. Maybe I should sleep more.
ziml77 5y ago
My assumption was that they were using the French word for rooster and that it was intended to be pronounced that way. But maybe that still has the same issue? Is "coq" used to mean "penis" in French?
- throwaway81523 5y ago
  Coq is "rooster" in French, keeping with INRIA's tradition of naming programming languages after animals, and pronounced approximately "coke". E.g. "coq au vin" (rooster with wine) is a standard French chicken dish consisting of what it sounds like. Coq (the program) is at least partly named after Thierry and Catarina Coquand, who worked on the Calculus of Constructions (the type theory used in Coq), and maybe also CoC (calculus of constructions, as mentioned). It gets worse: a standard technique for proving correctness of imperative programs is called Hoare Logic, after C.A.R. Hoare, the inventor of Quicksort. And of course there is an implementation of Hoare logic in Coq. I was asked a while back to give a talk about this stuff at work. It's maybe a relief that it didn't happen, since I dreaded having to say these names in today's environment. My plan was to put the slides up first (with the names and their origins on them), before saying the names out loud. I don't think "coq" is slang for penis in French, though my French is at best rudimentary. I'm familiar with "verge" ("rod") and a few similar terms being used that way in French, but the English connotation of Coq's name is coincidental, I think.
  - touisteur 5y ago
    It's not slang for anything except someone far too proud of himself (yes, 'him'). And it's really not pronounced like 'coke'. It's cock but without the stress on both 'k' sounds, I don't know how to explain any other way than 'soft k'. It's also the name for eggshell, and if you've never had 'oeuf à la coque' with bread you're missing something (mostly an half-cooked egg eaten with a spoon, but what's the point of fully cooking an egg anyway...). Don't know if it factored in. I'm not sure the pun is incidental, people like cute names with multiple interpretations. One other thing is that the rooster is kind of the national mascot. Here you'll hear someone shout 'cocorico' (rather mockingly) when some frenchman of woman realizes a feat. And there's a lot of self deprecation 'round here about the French being like roosters: feet in shit, and still blaring pride and moral lessons and thinking we're still a world power, to all who'll hear it. Our footballers have a rooster on their jersey I think, and you'll find many people here named Lecoq. I think the 90s were a different, less PC time and the recent wave of indignation about schoolboys' jokes hadn't reached our shores, and most people here didn't speak that much English, even less the 'bad' words. Not sure they expected the thing to become so popular then...

deadite 5y ago

Well, there go all the PCJ jokes :(

beermonster 5y ago

I used to get strange looks when I'd recommend people use 'The GIMP'.

Proven 5y ago

It's a shit move. Three letters, easy to remember. Great name. Some busybody will claim moral victory and - thanks to search & replace commits - call themselves a developer. Big step for the mankind! Recent examples of projects with lousy names: - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26902430 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26902430 - self-explanatory - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27088377 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27088377 - when I see this one I think I have flies crawling on my screen. WTF...

jobigoud 5y ago

The ubiquitous computing term "bit" means cock in French, should it be changed as well? /s

jjgreen 5y ago
bite, no?
- Zababa 5y ago
  "bit" (the english word) is pronounced exactly like "bite" (the french word), \bit\. The funny thing is that we often use "octet" to refer to bytes (which are pronounced /baɪt/ so no problems here) but we have no alternative for bit.
  - 8fGTBjZxBcHq 5y ago
    I don't know where you learned French or English for that matter but in my pretty mainstream accents English "bit" and French "bite" are not pronounced very similarly. I can't imagine a competent speaker confusing them.
    - Zababa 5y ago
      I'm a native French, and the french wiktionary seems to agree with me https://fr.wiktionary.org/wiki/bite https://fr.wiktionary.org/wiki/bite https://fr.wiktionary.org/wiki/bit https://fr.wiktionary.org/wiki/bit : Both are pronounced \bit\. You can listen to the pronunciation and it's exactly the same. I remember a few jokes around this in university. I've also found this where a few people suggest pronouncing "bit" exactly like "bite". I don't really know what else to say other that I'm French, went through university in France and we had this confusion.
      - 8fGTBjZxBcHq 5y ago
        Huh interesting. Must just be an accent thing. I have a southern US accent in English and American accent with SW France influences in French. To me they aren't that similar but I do see how they could be. You're the native speaker though so I don't really have a leg to stand on here.

lokr 5y ago

It is misguided to ban all homonyms that offend English speakers. How would you even do it in practice? 1) The last name of the famous German philosopher Immanuel Kant is pronounced like "cunt". How do they give a philosophy Kant course in the US? 2) Why do French girls have to say "bit twiddling" but American girls need to be protected from "Coq"? 3) The reason for the rename initiative is apparently a misunderstanding by an Uber driver when hearing the word. I'd humbly suggest not to use the word in a cab, just as you wouldn't say "I'm taking a Kant course in college" in a cab. Context matters. 4) It is not up to Americans to eradicate European words in European projects.

kangalioo 5y ago
1) The last name of Kant can't be retrospectively changed, plus the field of philosophy is not nearly as English-centric as computer science. 2) The language of computer science is English. A technical word being offensive in English has much more weight than being offensive in another language, because it affects so much more people. 3) Yes, ideally, people would abstain from snickering about the unintended sound of Coq in conversations. Unfortunately, that is just not happening. "harassment or awkward situations, reports about students (notably women) who ended up not learning / using Coq because of its name." You will not be able to completely eradicate all those awkward situations involving "Coq" by pointing out that "context matters". 4) Coq is very widely used in an English context, seeing as computer science itself is largely English. When (presumably) the majority of users of a project is American, it does make sense to cater to them to some extent. We should not downplay the absolutely real problems that Coq's current name causes.
- ballpen 5y ago
  Many open source projects started in Europe in the 1990s and had mostly European contributors. When they became famous, US corporations started monetizing them, buying contributors and slowly dictated everything. Languages like Python, which started in Europe and have at least 75% non-US contributions, are completely governed in the US. European and Asian opinions are ignored and sometimes derided, all while pretending to foster an "inclusive" environment. Projects moving to GitHub have caused many contributors to stop. No one cares, because the "right people" use GitHub and the others don't matter. Perhaps Academia is isolated from these issues to some extent, but make no mistake: In the current climate a renaming is highly political; in my opinion French students should revolt to protect their identity, it is the straw that breaks the Caml's back.