Re: a question of pronunciation

[Havoc Pennington <rhp zirx pair com>]

On 17 Mar 1999, Owen Taylor wrote:
> Hmmm, I'm not sure I catch the distinction here:
> 
>  Gnu - spelled with a 'gn' to represent some sounds in African
>        languages not found in English. Traditionally pronounced
>        'nu' in Enlish, more recently often pronounced with a hard
>        'g' sound because it sounds cool. (*)
>

And to avoid confusion with "new" in "GNU Project" ("I'm working on the
new/gnu project")
 
>  Gnome - spelled with a 'gn' because it was pronounced that way
>          in English in the distant past. Typically pronounced 
>          'nome' in modern Enlish... as part of the GNOME project,
>          pronounced with a hard 'g' because it sounds cool...
> 

I thought the hard G was by analogy to GNU, but people tend to drop it
because it's annoying to say and doesn't have the disambiguating purpose
it does in GNU. At least, I tend to drop it.

> Actually, the locals down south here seem to say 'gee-nome'
> most of the time...
> 

But I should do this instead, just to annoy the Yankees.

;-)

Havoc