Here are words I was saying wrong in my head until I heard other people say them out loud. This page is part of my broader goal of documenting knowledge gaps as a self-taught solo dev.
Frustratingly, these are all made-up pronunciations for made-up words. A wrong pronunciation just means a different pronunciation than the people around you. It's an imitation game. When in doubt, "you pronounce it the same way your boss does."
The jargon I fumbled, from an American perspective:
-
Asus
"AY-soos", not "AY-sis" -
Atlassian
"at-LASS-ee-in", not "at-LASH-en". -
daemon
"DEE-mihn" like "demon", although "DAY-mehn" like "Matt Damon" is also popular -
Debian
"DEHB-eee-in", as in "Debra and Ian", and not "DEE-bee-inn" -
ECMAScript
"ECK-muh-script", not "ee-see-em-ayy-script" -
Gaussian
"GOW-see-en", not "GOW-shin" -
GIF
like "gif", of course -
Gnome
"guh-NOME", similar to GNU, and not "nome" -
GNU
"guh-NOO", not "noo" -
GUID
"gwid" like "quid" or maybe alphabetized as "jee-you-eye-dee", but not "gooey'd" -
JSON
technically "JAY-sin" as in "Jason", but "JAY-sahn" is common -
Kernighan (, Brian)
"KERN-eh-hann", like "turn a hand", and not "KERN-again" -
LaTeX
"luh-TEKK" or maybe "lay-TEKK" or "LAY-tekk", but not "LAY-teks" -
Linus (Torvalds)
technically "LEE-nuhs" in those European languages while "LYE-nihs" in American -
OS X (mac)
"oh-ess TEN", not "oh-ess-ECKS" -
Poisson (distribution)
"pwah-SOHN", with a nasally ending, because French -
pypi
"PIE-pee-eye", not "PIE-pee" nor "pee-pee" -
Qt
technically "cute", similar to how Qbs is pronounced "cubes", although "KYEW-tee" is common -
Redis
"REDD-iss", not "REE-diss" -
regex
"RAY-ghex", "REH-ghex", or maybe "REH-jeks", but not "REE-jeks" -
repo
"REE-poh", not "REH-poh" -
SATA (hard drive)
"SAY-tuh", probably not "SAT-uh" -
serif (fonts)
"SERR-iff" like "sheriff", not "surr-EEF" -
Shibboleth
"SHIB-oh-leth", not "SIB-oh-leth" -
sudo
technically "SOO-doo" as in "superuser do", although "SOOD-oh" is common -
SUSE (Linux)
"SOO-suh", or maybe "sooz", and not "SOO-say" -
SQL
"SEE-kwul" like "sequel", and "ess-kew-ell" like "S-Q-L", are both valid -
SQLite
like above; just add "ite" to your chosen SQL pronunciation -
Ubuntu
"ooh-BOON-too", not "ooh-BUN-too" -
Vite
"veet", not "vyte"
Google search is a great help. Search "pronounce Asus", for example, and you get a helpful pronunciation widget. You can hear the audio, see plainly-spelled phonetics, and even check your pronunciation with a microphone speaking test.
For more commonly confused pronunciations, check HN and Reddit.