;) Last week we got quite a bit of mail about our newest Fast Reference "How do you pronounce IT?" Diethard O. was kind enough to take the time and let us know that he thought that "this list is a good thing, especially for people whose native language is not English."
Diethard was one of many readers who wanted to know how to pronounce "ASCII". Other popular pronunciation puzzlers included router, daemon, NetBEUI, Kerberos, and WebDAV.
John L. said he was glad we had put our home-made guide together because tricky pronunciations can be deadly at professional gatherings. "I mispronounced some Linux terms at a meeting with high-level management -- they were terms I had only read about. My faux pas (pronounced "fox paws") totally negated the point I was trying to make. Thank you for this very helpful guide!"
We figure that John was only teasing about how to pronounce "faux pas", but his point is well-taken. I'd like to personally thank those of you who took the time to gently correct my own "fox paw" last week. I now know, and will never forget, that the phrase "without further adieu" is from a Bugs Bunny cartoon and the correct expression is "without further ado" -- as in Shakespeare's play "Much Ado About Nothing". It's kind of nice having this big IT family that helps you out when you make a mistake!
I think Carol B. would agree. "Nobody wants to look like a fool by mispronouncing something in a presentation" she wrote. "I know I find it very hard to concentrate on what somebody is saying if they mispronounce something frequently in a conversation. Then, when it's my turn, I wonder if I should use their pronunciation so I don't draw attention to [their mispronunciation] or use my own pronunciation and risk alienating the person by appearing to be correcting or belittling them."
Lehnert R. wanted to know "Where can I find the antecedent of this whole "lower-ASCII pronunciation guide" that was used by the US wire services such as AP and UP back in the days of teletype and radio?" If anyone knows, please send it on to us and we'll post the URL in our Fast Reference. We agree it would be a handy thing to have!
Our fast reference is a working guide, so we invite you to keep your ideas coming! If you see any terms you think should be on our list, or disagree with a pronunciation that's already on the list, please let us know!
How do you pronounce IT?
http://whatis.techtarget.com/definition/0,,sid9_gci845059,00.html
We'd like to thank Pam Metivier, Dave V, Vincent De Keyzer, Robert Simmons, Ben Mayok, Amit Gupta, John Chambers, Cathie Agacinski, Jon De Tollenaere, Nick Nielsen, David Jenson, John Underwood, Hugh Gerechter, Ingrid Sallons, Stephanie Rothfuchs, Scott Varney, Carol Bailey, Lehnert Riegel, Margaret Dawn, Nancy Reinholt, Tom McKnight, John Paterson, Warren Willis, Caroline Mackie, Diethard Ohrt, Joni MacDonald, Paul Marsh, Mr Cynic, Walter Sherron, David Double, Robert C., Nora Holland, John Kneidel, Mark Huehls, Fred Heinemann, Sean Martin, Stephanie Vargas, Victor Fashoro, Bob McCullough, Chris Watson, Rachel Potts, Dave Pridgeon, Ric Alvarez, Tony F, Caroline Peters for their suggestions, corrections, and contributions.
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