7 ms·
The ubiquitous computing term "bit" means cock in French, should it be changed as well? /s
by jobigoud 5y ago
The ubiquitous computing term "bit" means cock in French, should it be changed as well? /s
- jjgreen 5y agobite, 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 agoI 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 agoI'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 agoHuh 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.
- jjgreen 5y agoBut in French, the word "bit" (as a French word) would be pronounced /bi/, as with dit ? That the French chose to continue to pronounce it in the English fashion suggests that they rather like the joke opportunity :-)