6 ms·
People for some reason think that they get to decide how to pronounce a name rather than the creator of the name. Oh well. Its an easy way to determine someone'
by kyruzic 5y ago
People for some reason think that they get to decide how to pronounce a name rather than the creator of the name. Oh well. Its an easy way to determine someone's level of internet knowledge.
- mattnewton 5y agoThat is how words work, they evolve as the consensus pronunciation evolves, they do not stay forever static. This gives us an easy solution to make everyone happy though! We gust have to change "graphics" to be pronounced as "jraphics"
- kyruzic 5y agoIts a name not a regular word.
- mattnewton 5y agoIt's an acronym really, where the first word of the acronym is "graphics" :)
- bener 5y agoThe pronunciation of names also changes over time, and across locations.
- HKH2 5y agoYour argument is descriptivist, whereas theirs is prescriptivist.
- eyelidlessness 5y agoAnd the former is right, whereas the latter is only present in academic discussions of use of language.
- HKH2 5y agoIf someone has a regular-looking name yet tells you their name is pronounced differently (and knows that it is irregular), would you say their name the way they want you to, or would you insist on saying it the regular way?
- eyelidlessness 5y agoI’d say their name the way they wanted to, because I’m not an asshole. But I don’t think that’s as much of a contradiction as you think it is. It’s a great example of how language evolves.
- HKH2 5y agoIt's an example of prescription in language. Correcting someone's spelling/grammar is another. Whether to prescribe language or not is somewhat arbitrary at times and is determined culturally, so I don't think the argument above can be resolved.
- eyelidlessness 5y agoI know that was your point and I said I knew it in my response. But it’s not prescriptivism. It’s proscribed, and that’s different. Accepting that someone’s name is linguistically different than the rules you expect it to follow is both not being an asshole and descriptivism in practice. The fact that it’s proscribed is just a testament that it’s important to the person who prompted you to accept that particular language evolution.
- praihan 5y agoThat's not how language evolves. I'm sure you don't pronounce every French word that was assimilated into English with a French accent / pronunciation.
- kyruzic 5y agoIts a name.
- tremon 5y agoI'm pretty sure that Matthaios, Markos, Loukas and Ioannes would not recognize their own names in the present-day English pronunciations (well, Mark and Luke might, but John would certainly not).
- yawn 5y agoCome to St. Louis where everyone mispronounces the French street names. Doug Crockford coined JSON as "Jason", but nearly every developer I've ever run into says "jaysawn", so that's how I say it too.
- School-Cotton 5y agoOr the name of St. Louis itself, for that matter.
- frosted-flakes 5y agoPNG was supposed to be "ping", but I've only ever heard people spell it out.
- Zandikar 5y agoAnd? That's only relevant if it's their own name, or potentially if something falls under the purview of the Académie Française, and even then, that requires you to care what the Academy thinks. There is more than one canonical way to pronounce things, even names. For example, what's the correct way to pronounce Arkansas? The real issue here is people trying to assert there is only one correct way to pronounce it.
- the_only_law 5y ago> Oh well. Its an easy way to determine someone's level of internet knowledge. No it’s not, plenty of people are very much of aware of the intended pronunciation and still choose to pronounce it another way.
- Zandikar 5y agoIndeed. I'm well aware of how the creator wants me to say it. I reject his reality and substitute my own.