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Trivia: the correct capitalization is LaTeX and it's pronounced "lay-tek". Knuth & friends were on a roll naming things - the 80s must've been quite a time. A

Trivia: the correct capitalization is LaTeX and it's pronounced "lay-tek". Knuth & friends were on a roll naming things - the 80s must've been quite a time. As always wiki knows all: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LaTeX https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LaTeX

seanhunter 1y ago
Another fun trivia: The "La" in latex is Leslie Lamport. https://lamport.azurewebsites.net/ https://lamport.azurewebsites.net/
TheAceOfHearts 1y ago
The special naming convention is mostly used as a form of elitist gatekeeping; it's a tribal shibboleth. You should be able to figure out whether someone is talking about latex (polymer) or latex (markup) from context, so having a special naming convention is rather pretentious and superfluous. If calling it lay-tek was important, they should've called it laytek. Historically, as I understand it, distinctions between the written and spoken forms of words were used as a form of gatekeeping between elites and commoners. Same goes for arXiv. The great thing about language is that you can just change things if enough people play along. Call it gif or jif, arxiv or archive, latex or laytek.
- josephg 1y ago
  Eh - the name is a bit of fun. Its fun to form communities with in-jokes and tribal knowledge and silly names. It doesn't hurt anyone. Lets not sacrifice everything joyous at the altar of being friendly to noobs.
- mariusor 1y ago
  They did call it Latek, the X in the name is the Greek letter χ (Chi) and in my opinion, it's not an elitist shibboleth but a way to showcase the advantages of their typesetting system over existing, at the time, methods that didn't invest a lot in rendering non ASCII character sets.
  - xboxnolifes 1y ago
    So it's not actually LaTaX, it's LaTeχ. Make sure you type it properly i guess.
    - mariusor 1y ago
      I'm not sure why you're telling me that. I didn't spell it either way.
    - int_19h 1y ago
      It's a capital Chi.
- IshKebab 1y ago
  Is arXiv not pronounced the same as "archive"? I agree with you about LaTeX but arXiv seems like an obvious allusion to "archive"?
  - DemocracyFTW2 1y ago
    Well it does lack that final -e of archive, and—fun fact!—like LaTeX which I know as ['la:teç], arXiv could plausibly be pronounced [ar'çi:f] in German although I've never heard anyone pronounce that name. So why is it arXiv not at least arXive with an -e?
    - IshKebab 1y ago
      Because they're trying to be quirky I guess, but it is still unmistakably a weird spelling of "archive" (especially given the context).
- n2h4 1y ago
  in both arXiv and LaTeX, X is greek(chi).
kashunstva 1y ago
> it's pronounced "lay-tek" Or “lah-tek”, the Wikipedia article doesn’t seem to address which, if either is preferred. And I think Leslie Lamport said that he didn’t want to impose any particular pronunciation.
- mcv 1y ago
  I've always pronounced it lah-tech, with the guttural ch from the Greek chi, which is what the X represents.
- mturmon 1y ago
  This is accurate.
mturmon 1y ago
This is incorrect. In his book on LaTeX, Leslie Lamport specifically says that he does not care how you pronounce it. (See also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LaTeX#Pronouncing_and_writing_%22LaTeX%22 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LaTeX#Pronouncing_and_writing_...) Knuth, on the other hand, has a whole rationale on why it’s pronounced “tech”. (“Your keyboard should become slightly moist”, iirc).
kaoD 1y ago
Voiceless velar fricative X or you're doing it wrong.
foldr 1y ago
From a linguist's point of view this is a perfect example of the chaos that ensues when people try to say how things are pronounced without describing the speech sounds using standard vocabulary. Here are the inept pronunciation instructions on the LaTeX project website: > «Lah-tech» or «Lay-tech» (to rhyme with «blech» or «Bertolt Brecht») The pronunciation of the 'ch' in 'blech' isn't really standardized, so that's not much help. If we go by the German pronunciation of Brecht then the sound should be [ç], i.e. a voiceless palatal fricative. But this seems to be a mistake, as Knuth intended the X in TeX to be [x], i.e. a voiceless velar fricative. In German, [ç] is an allophone of /x/ (conditioned by the preceding vowel), but they are distinct sounds, and Knuth's directions for the pronunciation of TeX unambiguously specify [x]. It seems unlikely that this difference between the X in LaTeX and the X in TeX is intentional, so maybe this was a confused attempt to identify the [x] sound. Really then, it's anyone's guess how LaTeX is supposed to be pronounced, since no-one with authority to specify has bothered to look up the IPA symbols for the relevant speech sounds. But IMO while [leɪtɛk] is a perfectly common and acceptable pronunciation, it can only really be understood as an anglicization of [leɪtɛx] rather than the canonical pronunciation.

seanhunter 1y ago

Another fun trivia: The "La" in latex is Leslie Lamport. https://lamport.azurewebsites.net/ https://lamport.azurewebsites.net/

TheAceOfHearts 1y ago

The special naming convention is mostly used as a form of elitist gatekeeping; it's a tribal shibboleth. You should be able to figure out whether someone is talking about latex (polymer) or latex (markup) from context, so having a special naming convention is rather pretentious and superfluous. If calling it lay-tek was important, they should've called it laytek. Historically, as I understand it, distinctions between the written and spoken forms of words were used as a form of gatekeeping between elites and commoners. Same goes for arXiv. The great thing about language is that you can just change things if enough people play along. Call it gif or jif, arxiv or archive, latex or laytek.

josephg 1y ago
Eh - the name is a bit of fun. Its fun to form communities with in-jokes and tribal knowledge and silly names. It doesn't hurt anyone. Lets not sacrifice everything joyous at the altar of being friendly to noobs.
mariusor 1y ago
They did call it Latek, the X in the name is the Greek letter χ (Chi) and in my opinion, it's not an elitist shibboleth but a way to showcase the advantages of their typesetting system over existing, at the time, methods that didn't invest a lot in rendering non ASCII character sets.
- xboxnolifes 1y ago
  So it's not actually LaTaX, it's LaTeχ. Make sure you type it properly i guess.
  - mariusor 1y ago
    I'm not sure why you're telling me that. I didn't spell it either way.
  - int_19h 1y ago
    It's a capital Chi.
IshKebab 1y ago
Is arXiv not pronounced the same as "archive"? I agree with you about LaTeX but arXiv seems like an obvious allusion to "archive"?
- DemocracyFTW2 1y ago
  Well it does lack that final -e of archive, and—fun fact!—like LaTeX which I know as ['la:teç], arXiv could plausibly be pronounced [ar'çi:f] in German although I've never heard anyone pronounce that name. So why is it arXiv not at least arXive with an -e?
  - IshKebab 1y ago
    Because they're trying to be quirky I guess, but it is still unmistakably a weird spelling of "archive" (especially given the context).
n2h4 1y ago
in both arXiv and LaTeX, X is greek(chi).

kashunstva 1y ago

> it's pronounced "lay-tek" Or “lah-tek”, the Wikipedia article doesn’t seem to address which, if either is preferred. And I think Leslie Lamport said that he didn’t want to impose any particular pronunciation.

mcv 1y ago
I've always pronounced it lah-tech, with the guttural ch from the Greek chi, which is what the X represents.
mturmon 1y ago
This is accurate.

mturmon 1y ago

This is incorrect. In his book on LaTeX, Leslie Lamport specifically says that he does not care how you pronounce it. (See also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LaTeX#Pronouncing_and_writing_%22LaTeX%22 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LaTeX#Pronouncing_and_writing_...) Knuth, on the other hand, has a whole rationale on why it’s pronounced “tech”. (“Your keyboard should become slightly moist”, iirc).

kaoD 1y ago

Voiceless velar fricative X or you're doing it wrong.

foldr 1y ago

From a linguist's point of view this is a perfect example of the chaos that ensues when people try to say how things are pronounced without describing the speech sounds using standard vocabulary. Here are the inept pronunciation instructions on the LaTeX project website: > «Lah-tech» or «Lay-tech» (to rhyme with «blech» or «Bertolt Brecht») The pronunciation of the 'ch' in 'blech' isn't really standardized, so that's not much help. If we go by the German pronunciation of Brecht then the sound should be [ç], i.e. a voiceless palatal fricative. But this seems to be a mistake, as Knuth intended the X in TeX to be [x], i.e. a voiceless velar fricative. In German, [ç] is an allophone of /x/ (conditioned by the preceding vowel), but they are distinct sounds, and Knuth's directions for the pronunciation of TeX unambiguously specify [x]. It seems unlikely that this difference between the X in LaTeX and the X in TeX is intentional, so maybe this was a confused attempt to identify the [x] sound. Really then, it's anyone's guess how LaTeX is supposed to be pronounced, since no-one with authority to specify has bothered to look up the IPA symbols for the relevant speech sounds. But IMO while [leɪtɛk] is a perfectly common and acceptable pronunciation, it can only really be understood as an anglicization of [leɪtɛx] rather than the canonical pronunciation.