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Not enough people know this, but when you say "etc" out loud in reference to the directory, it is supposed to sound like "etsy". I expect there will be people
by IvyMike 13y ago
Not enough people know this, but when you say "etc" out loud in reference to the directory, it is supposed to sound like "etsy".
I expect there will be people who reply to this comment to argue it should be "E-T-C" or "Et Cetera". You can ignore those people; they probably say "exclamation mark" instead of "bang".
- oneeyedpigeon 13y agoWhy?
- IvyMike 13y agoFaster to say, and that's how I learned it in 1992. This is one of those "jif" v. "gif" holy war issues. (Maybe "etc" is a minor skirmish rather than a full blown war.)
- anigbrowl 13y agoFaster to say A poor excuse for advancing illiteracy in both the linguistic and operational spaces. It's faster to say, but you've also made it harder for the lay person to understand. This sort of user hostility is a general problem in Linux; we are long since liberated from the days of unreliable teletype links, and the fetish for 3-letter contractions and abbreviated commands like cp and mv (instead of copy and move) does absolutely nothing to foster computer literacy.
- IvyMike 13y agoMan you really harshed the mood on what I thought was just a cute little bit of old-timey unix lore.
- anigbrowl 13y agoSorry, I didn't mean it that way. I used to love such insider knowledge as well, but over time I've become convinced that it's an anti-pattern that drives away more people than it attracts.
- graylights 13y agoComputer literacy doesn't care about linguistic literacy. Every profession has their jargon. Passwd = "password" /usr = "slash user" If someone doesn't understand you, then you explain and move on. But the industry has based around this jargon and removing/redefining it just creates separate standards.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- Someone 13y agoNot the best of arguments. "ets", if anything, would be even faster, and "how you learned it in 1992"? Unix V5 had an etc directory in 1974 or so (http://pdp2011.sytse.net/wordpress/pdp-11/sessions/unix-v5 http://pdp2011.sytse.net/wordpress/pdp-11/sessions/unix-v5) Now, if Dennis told you it was pronounced etsy, you would have a point.
- IvyMike 13y agoWell, in 1992 when I learned it, it seemed like a long established and widespread practice. And I could hardly be blamed for not having a personal data point of the pronunciation when I was one years old. :) If you look up "etc unix pronounciation", while there is a lot of bickering, I still think "etsy" is the slight majority among old timers. I will admit that this usage seems to have faded. I spent some time trying to find video of any of the original Bell Labs Unix team actually saying the directory out loud--I couldn't find any. I'm going to keep searching, but they honestly seem to go out of their way to avoid it. I did find some fascinating videos along the way [1]. To my chagrin, there are a few oblique text references on the web that say indicate that within Bell Labs, it was pronounced "etcetera". But I'd still like a canonical reference. [1] Like this video from 1982, including Kernighan, Thompson, Ritchie, and Aho. http://youtu.be/tc4ROCJYbm0 http://youtu.be/tc4ROCJYbm0
- 3amOpsGuy 13y agoEtsy sounds terrible to say! Sound enough reason not to pursue that idea :-) I know the old Bell manuals actually spelled out "et cetera" long hand in places, but still, any time i hear someone say that out loud meaning the directory, i have a (wholy irrational) cringe reaction!
- derleth 13y ago> Not enough people know this, but when you say "etc" out loud in reference to the directory, it is supposed to sound like "etsy". Says you. I say 'ek' and my pronunciation is just as valid. > You can ignore those people; they probably say "exclamation mark" instead of "bang". Bah. Everyone knows that's a shriek. You probably put sugar in your porridge.
- numeromancer 13y agoYou should go, say, six months, in which you never use “suppose” in the passive voice. Whenever you feel the inclination to say “it is supposed...” or “you're supposed to...”, force yourself to rephrase your sentence in the active voice. This requires, of course, that you find a supposer, and name him. At that point you will discover what it is you're really trying to say.
- IvyMike 13y ago> Not enough people know this, but when you say "etc" out loud in reference to the directory, you should say "etsy". Not really a big difference in meaning or tone, if you ask me.
- numeromancer 13y agoYou didn't use “suppose”.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- IvyMike 13y agoCan't you just tell me what you suppose [1] I was "really trying to say"? As it is, your point is over my head. [1] Ha!
- opminion 13y agoNumeromancer suggested that you rewrite your sentence which uses "suppose" in passive voice, into active voice. It is a school exercise at least in some European countries. It is a syntactic transformation of the sentence. Depending on the verb and other factors, the transformation preserves meaning, but sometimes it brings up a subject which was not clear in the original sentence in passive voice. Thus, Numeromancer is suggesting a way for you to reflect on the scope of authority by using a syntactic transformation.
- numeromancer 13y ago
- ramblerman 13y agoThese little tidbits can be amusing. Yet more often than not, void of actual technical knowledge, and with an air of arrogance, they are just a means to express superiority by proxy. It's akin to debating Einstein on physics by belittling his accent.
- IvyMike 13y agoIt occurred to me overnight that while people may find the domain-specific conventions annoying or an attempt to convey superiority, there is actually information being conveyed by the weirdness. For example, when I say "etsy" out loud, it makes it clear that I'm referring to the actual directory and not just saying "and other things". It's a way to avoid a bad "who's on first" routine. To take an example from further down in this thread: Likewise, in print, using cp and mv make it clear these specific things rather than the abstract concepts of copy and move.