On Fri, Feb 18, 2000 at 12:25:30AM -0500, Daniel Barclay wrote: > > > From: Hamish Moffatt <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > > > > Well, native English speakers pronounce Linus as Lie-nus (as in > > Peanuts).. but Linus Torvalds is pronounced Lee-nus, and he says Linux > > is Lee-nux. If he doesn't know, nobody does! So I'm with him. > > > Since those would suggest only "LIE-nucks" and "LEE-nucks", I still > wonder: Where did "LIH-nucks" come from? > > Did the sound come through someone speaking a language that has neither > the long-e nor long-i sounds (of English) (so only a short i was > perceived and repeated)? > > Was it just an odd perception of how the letters l-i-n-u-x would > be pronounced?
Well, this poor sap, never having heard the word pronouned, and before hearing the Linn-Uhks vs. Lie-nucks debates, came up with the Lie-nucks pronunciation based on regular American English phonetics. You've got a vowel preceding a single hard consonant which is then followed by a single vowel which is followed by a hard consonant. By default, that first vowel is long (though there are many exceptions). For instance, compare: "final", "fiddle" (special 'le' == 'el' rule), "liken", "limber"; "liner","linger"; etc... I have a hard time saying "Linn-Ucks", just 'cause it doesn't "sound" right -- whatever that means in American! Same as I have to remind myself to say "Gah-Noo" instead of "Noo" (soft "g" rule in "gn" dipthong). So, I for one will continue to say "lie-nucks" and to hell with the pronunciation police! -- +----------------------------------------------------+ | Eric G. Miller egm2@jps.net | | GnuPG public key: http://www.jps.net/egm2/gpg.asc | +----------------------------------------------------+
