3 ms·

Maybe I haven't watched enough presentations but this is the first time I've heard /etc pronounced like "Etsy". All these years I've been wasting syllables sa

Maybe I haven't watched enough presentations but this is the first time I've heard /etc pronounced like "Etsy". All these years I've been wasting syllables saying E-T-C

AceJohnny2 5y ago
How do you pronounce SCSI? :) I think the craft-marketplace Etsy is actually named after that pronunciation of "etc" ("scuzzy")
- notacoward 5y ago
  Fun fact: in the very early days, people actually suggested that it should be pronounced "sexy" but its true nature asserted itself and "scuzzy" won out.
  - StillBored 5y ago
    And despite it having left the everyday vernacular of your average computer user, its solidly embedded in many other protocols (and frequently tends to be the "working" part) because like TCP, AT command sets, etc tends to actually be pretty good following 20+ years of "bug" fixes. Even the glorious NVMe (which initially just looked like the merging of a hba+scsi) just embraced SES in its entirely. So, when you say USB, I reach for my SCSI manuals.. :)
    - notacoward 5y ago
      Yep, and other protocols that borrowed the SCSI command set are still busy reimplementing inferior versions of tagged command queuing. The semantics that SCSI already had in 1994 when I started working with them weren't perfect, but that only makes it even more amazing that protocols have mostly gone backwards in the 27 years since. Many people seem to enjoy standing on the toes of giants.
commandlinefan 5y ago
FWIW I’ve heard it pronounced that way since the early 90’s. Not sure how/when it started though.
- sneak 5y ago
  etc stands for et cetera ("and others"), or "et c." The latin word "et" ("and"), and the single abbreviated letter C. I actually write "etc." (in prose) as "et c." for this reason.
codetrotter 5y ago
I like to pronounce it [e`ts] when I think about it internally, but I live in Norway so I think about it that way because of the Norwegian word “etse”. When I talk about /etc to someone else I usually spell it out e-t-c though.
djur 5y ago
It's odd that I almost never encounter people pronouncing it like the English abbreviation, "et cetera". I suppose it's more syllables -- "ee tee cee" versus "et set err uh" or "et see" -- but not that many. I've never met anyone who pronounced /home "aich oh em ee" or /dev "dee ee vee".
- saghm 5y ago
  > I suppose it's more syllables -- "ee tee cee" versus "et set err uh" or "et see" > I've never met anyone who pronounced /home "aich oh em ee" or /dev "dee ee vee" I think fewer syllables is _exactly_ why people don't say those other pronunciations for /home and /dev. If there was a reasonable way to pronounce /etc as a single syllable, I'm almost 100% certain that would be how people pronounce it.
rodgerd 5y ago
I've always said "etcetera" rather than like goatse, but I guess as with all languages, there will be accents in unix as well. (I "grew up", as it were, pronouncing fsck as "fossick" which seems appropriately onomatopoeic.)

Maybe I haven't watched enough presentations but this is the first time I've heard /etc pronounced like "Etsy". All these years I've been wasting syllables saying E-T-C

AceJohnny2 5y ago

How do you pronounce SCSI? :) I think the craft-marketplace Etsy is actually named after that pronunciation of "etc" ("scuzzy")

notacoward 5y ago
Fun fact: in the very early days, people actually suggested that it should be pronounced "sexy" but its true nature asserted itself and "scuzzy" won out.
- StillBored 5y ago
  And despite it having left the everyday vernacular of your average computer user, its solidly embedded in many other protocols (and frequently tends to be the "working" part) because like TCP, AT command sets, etc tends to actually be pretty good following 20+ years of "bug" fixes. Even the glorious NVMe (which initially just looked like the merging of a hba+scsi) just embraced SES in its entirely. So, when you say USB, I reach for my SCSI manuals.. :)
  - notacoward 5y ago
    Yep, and other protocols that borrowed the SCSI command set are still busy reimplementing inferior versions of tagged command queuing. The semantics that SCSI already had in 1994 when I started working with them weren't perfect, but that only makes it even more amazing that protocols have mostly gone backwards in the 27 years since. Many people seem to enjoy standing on the toes of giants.

commandlinefan 5y ago

FWIW I’ve heard it pronounced that way since the early 90’s. Not sure how/when it started though.

sneak 5y ago
etc stands for et cetera ("and others"), or "et c." The latin word "et" ("and"), and the single abbreviated letter C. I actually write "etc." (in prose) as "et c." for this reason.

codetrotter 5y ago

I like to pronounce it [e`ts] when I think about it internally, but I live in Norway so I think about it that way because of the Norwegian word “etse”. When I talk about /etc to someone else I usually spell it out e-t-c though.

djur 5y ago

It's odd that I almost never encounter people pronouncing it like the English abbreviation, "et cetera". I suppose it's more syllables -- "ee tee cee" versus "et set err uh" or "et see" -- but not that many. I've never met anyone who pronounced /home "aich oh em ee" or /dev "dee ee vee".

saghm 5y ago
> I suppose it's more syllables -- "ee tee cee" versus "et set err uh" or "et see" > I've never met anyone who pronounced /home "aich oh em ee" or /dev "dee ee vee" I think fewer syllables is _exactly_ why people don't say those other pronunciations for /home and /dev. If there was a reasonable way to pronounce /etc as a single syllable, I'm almost 100% certain that would be how people pronounce it.

rodgerd 5y ago

I've always said "etcetera" rather than like goatse, but I guess as with all languages, there will be accents in unix as well. (I "grew up", as it were, pronouncing fsck as "fossick" which seems appropriately onomatopoeic.)