Acronyms and the strong emotions that pronunciations inspire

Raziaar

Raziaar

I Hate Custom Titles
Joined
Sep 13, 2003
Messages
29,769
Reaction score
140
G.U.I. Probably one of the most notable acronyms that has strong emotions tied to it on either side of the coin. You have a die hard legion of people, quite a number of them being long time computer experts who pronounce it GOOEY, and the other side who eschew tradition and would much rather spell out each letter as GEE YOU EYE. It's amazing the level of animosity for the other group that each one has... with the gooey people questioning the integrity and professionalism and abandonment of tradition of the G.U.I people, and the G.U.I people considering the GOOEY individuals to sound stupid and childish and clingy to their traditions.

Chances are you, you inevitably fall into one of these camps and it's probably the gooey camp.

My question is, how do you pronounce GUI? Do you have any strong feelings about the people who pronounce it differently?

What about some other acronyms? Many of them are computer related, but they don't have to be.

WYSIWYG
SCSI
JPEG
GIF (Jiff? Giff? G.I.F.?)
SQL

The list goes on. Toss some out, explain your feelings about people who pronounce it differently. And also ask, why do these inspire such animosity between individuals? Is it that atrocious that someone would choose to pronounce each letter individually, and is it that awful that someone would rather eschew doing so and shorten their spoken syllables?
 
I hate people who say gooey.

I don't know anyone who would spell out WYSIWYG, that's just a waste of time.
I never heard anyone spell out SCSI, JPEG, or GIF either.

I spell out SQL if I read the letters SQL. I just don't associate it with sequel in my head.

I sometimes say "dot wav" instead of "dot wave" for .wav files, which is kind of silly.
 
I pronounce GUI gooey. Dont think I've seen a person spell it out before, and havent ever noticed conflicts between people who use different methods of pronounciation. From what I've observed, its normally pretty clear which method is easier/sounds better depending on the acronym, and people tend to universally agree on a given method (ie. spell it out for FBI, make up word for JPEG).
 
I pronounce them all as words, not letters. Gooey, giff, sequel....
I don't say Jiff because that sounds like a peanut butter. Although I don't have a problem with Gooey.
I don't have anything against people who pronounce each letter, but it just seems really inefficient.
For jpeg, I probably used to say "jay pee gee" as a kid but now say "jay-peg." But I hate when the ".jpeg" extension is used instead of ".jpg".

The only other acronyms I can think of at the moment are science related ones.
There's a technique called "Flow Field Flow Fractionation" or "Asymmetric Flow Field Flow Fractionation", or sometimes the first "Flow" is left off. It's fairly new, so there's no standard on how to abbreviate it. I've seen FFFF, FFF, AF4, AF3, FlFFF, etc. Usually people say "Eff Eff Eff." I have a strange desire to go around calling it "Fluff Fluff" (FlFFlF) or "uh-Fluff-Fluff" (AFlFlF), but I doubt it'll fly.
For common terms:
Usually um (10^-6 m) is pronounced "micron." I know someone who pronounces it "micrometer" and it pisses me off. Two extra syllables!!!
Similarly, I say "mill" for mL, instead of pronouncing "millileter." I guess some people say "emm ell" too -- that seems the weirdest.
 
I never understood the elitism of people who say gooey. Even if you're a very good programmer yourself and you have a preference to spell out GUI instead of saying gooey, you'll still be mocked and called a newbie because you don't conform to tradition on pronunciation. It totally confuses me and all I have to say to those people is to go suck a dick.

I prefer to spell out GUI cause gooey sounds stupid. And it mostly sounds stupid to me because of the elitism of the people who say it. I was raised with people saying gooey, but I chose G.U.I. precisely to be opposed and opposed to the retarded tradition. I mean, it's spelling out letters, how ****ing terrible can that be except for retards? I understand why you say gooey, and me spelling it out doesn't make me any less newbish. It just means I don't suck the cock of tradition you asshole!

I don't say scuzzy. I almost never use the acronym as it is, but when I do I usually just spell it out.

I say "what you see is what you get" I don't use wizzy-wig.

J-Peg for me. Doesn't bother me if someone spells it ou JPEG or JPG. I sometimes use JPG because file extensions often exclude the E.

It's Jiff for me on that one...

And sequel I really enjoy saying because it sounds pleasant. Sequel... Sequel server. If someone wants to spell it out though, it won't bother me.
 
Eh, I don't hang out around programmers, so I've never experienced GUI elitism nor realized it existed.
 
dfc05 said:
I don't have anything against people who pronounce each letter, but it just seems really inefficient.
Click to expand...

Is efficiency really that important when it comes to one or two extra syllables? I curse the **** out of SMS speak specifically for its "efficiency" to convey a point. People are really lazy in that regard and it bothers me. I don't consider the usage of words for acronyms to be laziness though... just tradition, sometimes silly tradition.


Oh and as for the gooey elitism... just search for "gui vs gooey" on tech forums such as anandtech and others.
 
Now that is something that does bother me about abbreviation, when people shorten words in text messages. Sure, its generally not hard to understand, but it looks pretty terrible and makes you look a bit silly (then again, I use Swype so spelling out entire words has never been a problem for me :p).
 
I also hate abbreviations in texts. Speaking is different though. For me, some of these are genuinely harder to say in the longer form, like SQL. Or for millileter, "mill" is way easier than dealing with two L's in a row. I had to take speech therapy class though, and one of my problem letters was L, so that could just be a personal issue :p.
 
I hung around professionals and there is no such thing as animosity between any of them. Its purely internet hobbyist bullshit.

I pronounce GUI as either GUI or gooey, its usually dependent on who I'm talking to and how they say it. I don't do it intentionally, i just naturally say it however they do. When reading it, its likes 50/50 how I say it in my head.

I pronounce J-Peg, and Ghiff, but spell out the letters for the rest. Never actually heard anybody pronounce them as words, but then I dont really talk about them much. If someone talked about sequel I'd just be confused and have to ask what it meant.
 
Krynn72 said:
I hung around professionals and there is no such thing as animosity between any of them. Its purely internet hobbyist bullshit.

I pronounce GUI as either GUI or gooey, its usually dependent on who I'm talking to and how they say it. I don't do it intentionally, i just naturally say it however they do. When reading it, its likes 50/50 how I say it in my head.

I pronounce J-Peg, and Ghiff, but spell out the letters for the rest. Never actually heard anybody pronounce them as words, but then I dont really talk about them much. If someone talked about sequel I'd just be confused and have to ask what it meant.
Click to expand...

Just because you haven't seen it, doesn't mean it exist. There are professional programmers who feel pretty strongly about it. They may not harbor any real animosity, but they still have strong feelings for their preference. Check out some serious programming forums where some of the people have fairly significant jobs in the technology industry and you'll be surprised at the number who say things like wanting to slap the shit out of some new guy or somebody who spelled out GUI. People have strong feelings, they're just not typically going to act out on them or really express them in life how they feel in their head and on the internet. They'd have issues with the HR departments and their reputations if they did.
 
I honestly don't have to say these things out loud too often, so I haven't built up a preference, really.

Gooey sounds dumb, though.
 
oddly, SQL and Sequel reference two different database types in my head.
S.Q.L immediately gets tied with MySQL (My S.Q.L.) and Sequel gets tied to MS SQL.
 
GUI = Jee You Eye (gooey sounds silly)
JPEG = Jay Peg (usually though if I'm calling out a file name I usually say "dot jay pee jee" but that's true of what I do for file names in general)
GIF = Jif
SQL = Es Queue El


I don't know what these are:
SCSI
WYSIWYG



Half-Life one: Do you say "hev suit" or "H E V suit"?
 
I only phoneticise acronyms with nonconsecutive vowels.

also

gif -> jiff -> jraphics interchange format
 
ríomhaire said:
Half-Life one: Do you say "hev suit" or "H E V suit"?
Click to expand...
Dont they say the letters in the game? Thats how I say it, at any rate.
Raziaar said:
Just because you haven't seen it, doesn't mean it exist. There are professional programmers who feel pretty strongly about it. They may not harbor any real animosity, but they still have strong feelings for their preference. Check out some serious programming forums where some of the people have fairly significant jobs in the technology industry and you'll be surprised at the number who say things like wanting to slap the shit out of some new guy or somebody who spelled out GUI. People have strong feelings, they're just not typically going to act out on them or really express them in life how they feel in their head and on the internet. They'd have issues with the HR departments and their reputations if they did.
Click to expand...
Well then they're ****ing idiots who shouldn't be listened to. Also, when does this even come up? Do they expect people to type out gooey on a forum or something?
Remus said:
I actually say the whole thing: game user interface.
Click to expand...
lol
 
Remus said:
Umm... no.
Click to expand...

Um, yes. Whats the first result when you do a search for "GUI"? You asked how you were supposed to know, you're supposed to know by looking it up, not making your own assumption!
 
I've never heard anyone refer to SCSI as anything but scuzzy. And saying it at work (computer recycler/reseller) to people from all sorts of computer backgrounds has never brought about confusion.
 
While playing Deus Ex, near the beginning, Jensen says "scuzzy" (referring to SCSI) when handing the Typhoon over to Pritchard. Jogged my memory of this thread.
 
Raziaar said:
G.U.I. Probably one of the most notable acronyms that has strong emotions tied to it on either side of the coin. You have a die hard legion of people, quite a number of them being long time computer experts who pronounce it GOOEY, and the other side who eschew tradition and would much rather spell out each letter as GEE YOU EYE. It's amazing the level of animosity for the other group that each one has... with the gooey people questioning the integrity and professionalism and abandonment of tradition of the G.U.I people, and the G.U.I people considering the GOOEY individuals to sound stupid and childish and clingy to their traditions.

Chances are you, you inevitably fall into one of these camps and it's probably the gooey camp.

My question is, how do you pronounce GUI? Do you have any strong feelings about the people who pronounce it differently?

What about some other acronyms? Many of them are computer related, but they don't have to be.

WYSIWYG
SCSI
JPEG
GIF (Jiff? Giff? G.I.F.?)
SQL

The list goes on. Toss some out, explain your feelings about people who pronounce it differently. And also ask, why do these inspire such animosity between individuals? Is it that atrocious that someone would choose to pronounce each letter individually, and is it that awful that someone would rather eschew doing so and shorten their spoken syllables?
Click to expand...

GUI = Gee You Eye
SCSI = Scuzzy
JPEG/JPG = J-Peg
GIF = Giff
SQL = Ess Queue Ell

I can't think of any pronunciations that actually bug me. There's a brief moment of confusion if someone uses a different pronunciation than I'm used to, but not enough to be annoying.

Edit: Oh, and I pronounce WYSIWYG as a word. Not often, though, if I can help it.
 
Anybody who has anything at all to do with WYSIWYG editors should be shot.

That is all I have to contribute to this discussion.
 
Stigmata said:
Wisey-wig :v
Click to expand...

Like, badhat, I hardly ever have reason to actually vocalize these sorts of things, but in my head, i've always gone so far as to actually pronounce "WYSIWYG" word for word.
 
Yeah I just say "what you see is what you get"... it's not that much longer than saying wizzy-wig.
 
Honestly I don't even phoneticise that one. When I read it, I read "wshudfga87ydghpasofdhg" and know that it's "that stupid goddamn acronym for compile-less editors".
 
I have a question regarding acronyms, HL2.net.
When you read 'HL2' would you say/think of it as H-L-2 or Half-Life 2? I'm always the latter, H-L-2 is such a mouthful.

Also, when it comes to Half-Life, do you pronounce it as "Haff-Life" or "Harf-Life"?
Kinda like asking who is American and who isn't, but still.
 
JUL3 said:
I have a question regarding acronyms, HL2.net.
When you read 'HL2' would you say/think of it as H-L-2 or Half-Life 2? I'm always the latter, H-L-2 is such a mouthful.

Also, when it comes to Half-Life, do you pronounce it as "Haff-Life" or "Harf-Life"?
Kinda like asking who is American and who isn't, but still.
Click to expand...

When I think of the forums, "Halflife2.net". But when it's the game, "HL2". Strangely, I always will refer to "Half-Life" when speaking about the first installation of the series.

And "Haff". Call me a cultural-arse (heh), but is it seriously pronounced "Harf" outside of the states?
 
How is H-L-2 a mouthful? Its the same number of syllables. I say the letters, at any rate.

And wtf at "harf"
 
Krynn72 said:
How is H-L-2 a mouthful? Its the same number of syllables. I say the letters, at any rate.

And wtf at "harf"
Click to expand...

Well it seems like more of a mouthful, equal amount of syllables - but one is more specific than the other.

Believe it or not, not all people in the world are American. I pronounce 'Half' as "Harf".
EDIT: Actually, I shouldn't generalise. I can't vouch for anywhere else, but in Australia it's "Harf".
 
Thats even weirder than people who pronounce Mario as Maire-ee-oh instead of Marr-ee-oh.
 
Vegeta just called FAQ "Eff A Queue" and I want to strangle him!
 
I pronounce the words... in my head at least. I can't recall ever saying halflife2.net out loud. And I say "haff."
In '04, when HL2 came out, I was in a class abbreviated "HL Math" for "higher level math." It got confusing sometimes.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

Tollbooth Willie
To Those That Stand, Those That Fell
Replies
6
Views
2K
Tollbooth Willie
Tollbooth Willie
MFL
Fascinating look at the ongoing psychological evolution of flat hieirarchies.
Replies
2
Views
2K
Tollbooth Willie
Tollbooth Willie
B
Valve artist Drew Wolf's new website reveals Team Fortress 2's female cast and more
Replies
0
Views
60K
Barnz
B
B
The other cancelled ports of Half-Life
Replies
3
Views
7K
Tollbooth Willie
Tollbooth Willie
B
Community Interviews: Final Exchange development team
Replies
0
Views
5K
Barnz
B
Back
Top