And I will always pronounce SQL as “squeal”
this post was submitted on 26 Feb 2025
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I've never heard it pronounced any other way than "engine x".
When I first encountered it, it was by hearing it. It took longer than it probably should have to recognize that when people talked about “engine x”, they meant “in-jinks”
I heard it spoken first as well, but I ended up seeing it in text form not long after. I think it would have been more confusing if that hadn't been the era of internet companies thinking they were clever if they dropped a letter (usually a vowel).
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I really dislike the trend of made up pronunciations. I can accept that gnome is with an audible g since that makes more sense than a silent g, but nginx can be at best similar to engine-x, but even then it's more like the n in dnd rather than en.
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I thought it was pronounced N-G-N-X
NGNX, the other tetragrammaton.
Although I'm Jewish, so I should probably write it N-NX.
Ha! There's probably some other layer of theology there when you consider that that G stands for "Gine" pronounced like "Djinn."
I'm OOTL.
That is the protagonist from the (IMHO excellent) movie Equilibrium. He describes himself as a "tetragrammaton cleric." Prior to your comment, I didn't know the first word had any actual real world meaning, so that's where my mind went when I saw you use it. (Apologies if this is disrespectful to the intent of the word.)
As an interesting side note, supposedly that movie is what got Christian Bale cast as Batman.
Sounds cool, will add to the watch list.
(Apologies if this is disrespectful to the intent of the word.)
I'm hella atheist, for the record, so no worries. Any actual Jewish practice was a few mothers ago, but mentioning it added both humour and another hint for people who know the concept but not the word.
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If you want people to pronounce your project name correctly you should spell it that way. Having a FAQ on pronunciation means you've messed up and lost already. Want it to be called "Engine X"? Call it "Engine X".
My favourite is SAP not wanting people to call it Sap but to spell it out S.A.P. Well sorry, but it's a CVC word, literally the first kind of word everyone learns.
And is even worse sign if you need a document to describe how to pronounce its name. It is a sign you should pick another name.
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Does this mean when you go into an airport bathroom and see the hand dryer, you know it's called an XLerator (ex-LAIReighter)?