← Peter Bossev

Mispronounciations

Tech Terms #

Term Common (Wrong) Pronunciation Correct Pronunciation Notes
Asus AY-sis AY-soos Official company pronunciation
daemon DAY-men DEE-men Like “demon”; both used, but DEE-men is traditional
Debian DEE-bee-in DEB-ee-in Named after Debra and Ian
Gaussian GOW-shin GOW-see-en Named after Carl Friedrich Gauss
Gnome nome guh-NOME The “g” is pronounced
GUID goo-eed gwid Rhymes with “quid”
JSON JAY-sahn JAY-sin Like the name “Jason”
LaTeX LAY-teks luh-TEK / lay-TEK Ends with a hard “k”, not “ks”
Linus (Torvalds) LYE-nus LEE-nus Finnish pronunciation
OS X (macOS) oh-ess-EX oh-ess-TEN “X” as the Roman numeral 10
Poisson (distribution) poy-son pwah-SOHN French nasal ending
PyPI PIE-pee PIE-pee-eye “Python Package Index” acronym
Qt kyoo-tee cute Literally stands for “cute”
SUSE (Linux) SOO-say SOO-suh / sooz From Software und System-Entwicklung
Ubuntu ooh-BUN-too ooh-BOON-too From a Zulu word meaning “humanity”
Vite vyte veet French for “fast”

Photography Terms #

Term Common (Wrong) Pronunciation Correct Pronunciation Notes
bokeh BO-ka BOH-keh Two syllables; from Japanese “boke”
Fresnel (Phase Fresnel) FREZ-nell / FREZ-nel freh-NEL French origin; silent “s”
Leica LAY-ka LYE-ka “Leitz + camera” portmanteau
moiré mai-ur mwah-RAY French; “mwa” + “ray”
Zeiss zayss zice German; rhymes with “rice”