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Comment by mrow84 | Hacker News Reader

That was too traumatic to contemplate, so I referred to the FAQ and found relief in section 1.1:

"We pronounce curl and cURL with an initial k sound: [kurl]."

They do, however, note that the "fact it can also be pronounced 'see URL' also helped" [to choose the name].

That reminds me that I had been using sudo for close to 15 years before I realized that it was a combination of 'su' and 'do.' I'm still not sure if it's properly pronounced 'pseudo' or 'sue-doo', but it really blew my mind once I figured out the name.

Edit: Changed 'sue-do' to 'sue-doo' to make it less ambiguous.

I always though it was abbreviated of super-do - much like the other unixisms (ls, cd etc.)

> I'm still not sure if it's properly pronounced 'pseudo' or 'sue-do

Those are both pronounced the same way.

The first one is sue-doe, the second is sue-do

> Those are both pronounced the same way.

The prior is pronounced /ˈso͞odō/

The latter is pronounced /so͞odu/

in the days of yore when I learned to program in basic before learning English I pronounced goto with the second o rhyming with the first one, it embarassignly also took some time after learning English to figure out that goto was "go to" as my brain had made the programming association and wasn't treating it as a language construct at all...

Speaking about sudo, learned that before living in an English speaking country, so everybody pronounced rhyming with su-go (say) not su-do and I still pronounce it that way (which I guess it's wrong!)

ah, the joys of learning English as a written language first, even now after living in North America for nearly 20 years occasionally I find words I completely mispronounce due to having learned them from books

I was a bit disappointed when I discovered that "su" doesn't stand for superuser but for the rather bland "set uid".

why not "switch user", hah

This is a useful discovery though, as it points you towards the fact that as well as running as super user (the default) sudo can run a command as any target user (e.g. `sudo -u zofrex dosomethingevil`).

I know it's not actually true, but I choose to believe that "su" stands for superuser and "sudo" is a witty pun which means both "superuser do" and "pseudo" because you're pretending to be a superuser.

You think that's traumatic?

See you are ell.

Wait, is that wrong? I've only ever met a single person that pronounced URL like "Earl". Everyone else says the letters, and thus, you get "see you are ell". I tend to go back and forth with cURL, sometimes calling it "kurl".

Same problem with SQL. Is it "ess que ell" or "sequel"?

The nice thing about SQL and URL is that they're so widely used in our profession that regardless of how you say them you will be understood easily. Some people say "ess que ell" and others say "sequel" and that's fine; everyone understands everyone.

It's unconventional pronunciations of less common initialisms that cause problems.

May I lament at this point that we non native speakers often miss out on the pun entirely and read brand-/projectnames as abstract fantasy words.

SQL -> "sequel", how could we know?

"Sequel", or "skewl" when I'm in a hurry. Who has time to say "ess que ell"?

A friend of mine, who is not a fan of database work, pronounces it "squeal".

That's why I say "postgres", not "postgre sql".

What about Postgres Cue Ell?

On one occasion I overheard SQL pronounced as squeal.

Stunned into silence.

Many people use 'seaqual' if that is what you mean.. I don't think it is rare.

"Squeal", like a pig. Not "Sequel" like 'Babe: pig in the city'.

squirrel :)

Haha that's just too much... sorry.

I did also pronounced [kurl]. Didn't notice see-URL, because of a different pronunciation on "c". :)

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