3 ms·

We all know "GNU's Not Unix." But what does G stand for?

• andrey-p 12y ago
  GNU, of course.
• sah2ed 12y ago
  GNU is a recursive acronym http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recursive_acronym http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recursive_acronym
  • vinceyuan 12y ago
    I know it is a recursive acronym. I just want to know why they chose G, instead of A, B, C, ... etc.
    • ewzimm 12y ago
      Stallman liked GNU because it's unpronounceable. When Europeans first discovered the animal, Africans referred to the first sound in its name as a click, which the Europeans didn't use in their languages, so the "g" in the word essentially stands for "unpronounceable sound," and is usually omitted. He used it for fun but brought back the sound in the form of a hard "g."
    • smorrow 12y ago
      "Gnu" is a real word in the dictionary. Edit: On my system it's the only ^.nu$ in the dictionary.