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It's a joke comment but it made me realize people see the "bit" shortening coming about differently. It could be any one of (and maybe even more, I just had to

It's a joke comment but it made me realize people see the "bit" shortening coming about differently. It could be any one of (and maybe even more, I just had to stop thinking about this before I ended up spending all day on it): - BInary digiT [BIT] - BInary digIT [BIT[ (i.e. "merge on the shared vowel") - Binary digIT [BIT] That's consistent with the common usage of trit if you take it as a "trinary digit": - TRInary digiT [TRIT] - TRInary digIT [TRIT] - TRinary digIT [TRIT] But if you're one to stick to ternary digit then you can end up with all sorts of unique combos: - TErnary digiT [TET] - TErnary digIT [TEIT] (no shared vowel to merge on) - Ternary digIT [TIT] (the above humor) Personally, the middle options for the first 2 sections (BIT and TRIT via shared vowel) are what I always mentally jumped to. If I was going to stick with "ternary" terminology I think, from a pure mapping of mental mechanics, I'd have ended up on TET (i.e. when there is no shared vowel assume the vowel was from the first word instead of the 2nd). The problem with that being TET conflicts with base 4, leaving you with either the awkward double vowel or the awkward end vowel pull. Or just calling it a trinary digit where you get the same consistency results as from BIT. Thank you for coming to my TED talk (the things a hacker thinks about while burning their PTO I suppose?)

beng-nl 2y ago
I look forward to your thesis.
sigmoid10 2y ago
Nice analysis, but you missed the most obvious one, which is also what I was deriving from in the above comment: Pronunciation. The "i" in "bit" is pronounced exactly like the second "i" in "digit" and not like the "i" in "binary", which sounds more like the "i" in bite. So the "it" in "bit" has to come from digIT. Consequently, the most logical shortening for "Trinary digIT" must be TIT.
- zamadatix 2y ago
  That's the "Binary digIT [BIT]" line. Do you always go based on the input sounds rather than output reading or just sometimes though? E.g. for special weapons and tactics do you say it like you would in "the cat swat at the toy" or more akin to "sw@" (same first half but then "at" for the second half because the 'a' comes from a short 'a'?). Of course, just for GIF alone I wouldn't mind your method was the universally obvious way... but now I might as well talk about religion and politics too!
  - sigmoid10 2y ago
    I meant you missed that line for the "trinary digit" cases.
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
    - zamadatix 2y ago
      Oh, yeah if you break things in the middle of syllables you could get even more combinations.
      - sigmoid10 2y ago
        No need to break anything since it is obviously not syllables that are important.
saghm 2y ago
> Personally, the middle options for the first 2 sections (BIT and TRIT via shared vowel) are what I always mentally jumped to. If I was going to stick with "ternary" terminology I think, from a pure mapping of mental mechanics, I'd have ended up on TET (i.e. when there is no shared vowel assume the vowel was from the first word instead of the 2nd). The problem with that being TET conflicts with base 4, leaving you with either the awkward double vowel or the awkward end vowel pull. Or just calling it a trinary digit where you get the same consistency results as from BIT. If I had been trying to come up with something, I probably would have started with an approach of picking something that was as similar-sounding to "bit" as possible so it would be recognizable and then looking for a justification I could use to argue why it was consistent rather than trying to figure out what the origin of "bit" is and then utilizing the same formula. Interestingly, this would have ended up at basically the same place as you, since I would have first thought of "tit", rejected it due to it not seeming likely to get adopted due to the connotations, and then picked "trit" as the next closest thing.
cperciva 2y ago
We have more to go on than binary though. Hexadecimal "digits" are universally known as "hexits", not "hexats" -- so "it" must be the suffix, not the "t" by itself.
- zamadatix 2y ago
  Still consistent with the middle option of sharing a middle vowel after the break, just that there isn't one to share between hexa and digi.
pishpash 2y ago
It's pronounced 'b-it' like 'dig-it', not 'bye-t' like 'bye-nary'. Going by linguistics the 'i' must come from 'digit', and a 'bit' is therefore most plausibly a 'b'inary dig'it'. A 'ter'nary dig'it' would be a 'terit', which elides to 'trit'. That sounds like a natural construction, probably why it came about in the first place. You can't drop the 'r' willy nilly because the proto-Indo-European root etymon is 'tr-' not 't-', same in most descendant languages, and 'ter-' is one unexplained corruption of 'tr-' somewhere in the Latin line.

beng-nl 2y ago

I look forward to your thesis.

sigmoid10 2y ago

Nice analysis, but you missed the most obvious one, which is also what I was deriving from in the above comment: Pronunciation. The "i" in "bit" is pronounced exactly like the second "i" in "digit" and not like the "i" in "binary", which sounds more like the "i" in bite. So the "it" in "bit" has to come from digIT. Consequently, the most logical shortening for "Trinary digIT" must be TIT.

zamadatix 2y ago
That's the "Binary digIT [BIT]" line. Do you always go based on the input sounds rather than output reading or just sometimes though? E.g. for special weapons and tactics do you say it like you would in "the cat swat at the toy" or more akin to "sw@" (same first half but then "at" for the second half because the 'a' comes from a short 'a'?). Of course, just for GIF alone I wouldn't mind your method was the universally obvious way... but now I might as well talk about religion and politics too!
- sigmoid10 2y ago
  I meant you missed that line for the "trinary digit" cases.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - zamadatix 2y ago
    Oh, yeah if you break things in the middle of syllables you could get even more combinations.
    - sigmoid10 2y ago
      No need to break anything since it is obviously not syllables that are important.

saghm 2y ago

> Personally, the middle options for the first 2 sections (BIT and TRIT via shared vowel) are what I always mentally jumped to. If I was going to stick with "ternary" terminology I think, from a pure mapping of mental mechanics, I'd have ended up on TET (i.e. when there is no shared vowel assume the vowel was from the first word instead of the 2nd). The problem with that being TET conflicts with base 4, leaving you with either the awkward double vowel or the awkward end vowel pull. Or just calling it a trinary digit where you get the same consistency results as from BIT. If I had been trying to come up with something, I probably would have started with an approach of picking something that was as similar-sounding to "bit" as possible so it would be recognizable and then looking for a justification I could use to argue why it was consistent rather than trying to figure out what the origin of "bit" is and then utilizing the same formula. Interestingly, this would have ended up at basically the same place as you, since I would have first thought of "tit", rejected it due to it not seeming likely to get adopted due to the connotations, and then picked "trit" as the next closest thing.

cperciva 2y ago

We have more to go on than binary though. Hexadecimal "digits" are universally known as "hexits", not "hexats" -- so "it" must be the suffix, not the "t" by itself.

zamadatix 2y ago
Still consistent with the middle option of sharing a middle vowel after the break, just that there isn't one to share between hexa and digi.

pishpash 2y ago

It's pronounced 'b-it' like 'dig-it', not 'bye-t' like 'bye-nary'. Going by linguistics the 'i' must come from 'digit', and a 'bit' is therefore most plausibly a 'b'inary dig'it'. A 'ter'nary dig'it' would be a 'terit', which elides to 'trit'. That sounds like a natural construction, probably why it came about in the first place. You can't drop the 'r' willy nilly because the proto-Indo-European root etymon is 'tr-' not 't-', same in most descendant languages, and 'ter-' is one unexplained corruption of 'tr-' somewhere in the Latin line.