4 ms·

Like "archive". The X represents the Greek letter χ. Similar to TeX or LaTeX, which are pronounced like "tech" and "lay-tech".

• Uehreka 5y ago
  With arXiv I mind less for some reason, but I pronounce TeX and LaTeX as teks and lay-teks because: - That’s how I pronounced them when I first read them. - That’s how everyone else pronounces them when they first read them until someone who has heard this factoid corrects them. - They look exactly like commonly-used English words. - It feels like a dumb prank to take the name of a writing system, whose sole purpose is written word and which will be most discussed in written media, and give it a deliberately odd pronunciation that people don’t usually discover until they talk to someone about it. I’m grateful to the legendary folks who built these things, but I still wish they would’ve honored the Least Surprise Principle and picked better names.
  • Jiro 5y ago
    Not to say I disagree with you at all, but everything you say here applies to GNU.... (Well, maybe it's not so common a word, but it's still a written word for something that you're supposed to pronounce it unlike the English word it resembles.)
    • Uehreka 5y ago
      I pronounce it gah-noo or G.N.U. arbitrarily, but I assumed it was just like “sequel” and S.Q.L. where everyone just pronounces it both ways.
      • anticensor 5y ago
        SEQUEL is actually the precursor of SQL :)