From owner-freebsd-chat Sun May 14 19:29:44 2000 Delivered-To: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org Received: from freebie.lemis.com (freebie.lemis.com [192.109.197.137]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id DDB5137B950 for ; Sun, 14 May 2000 19:29:39 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from grog@freebie.lemis.com) Received: (from grog@localhost) by freebie.lemis.com (8.9.3/8.9.0) id MAA00750 for freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG; Mon, 15 May 2000 12:00:19 +0930 (CST) Date: Mon, 15 May 2000 12:00:19 +0930 From: Greg Lehey To: freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: How is "TeX" typically pronounced? Message-ID: <20000515120019.A541@freebie.lemis.com> References: <8fkslb$105l$1@atlantis.rz.tu-clausthal.de> <200005141603.SAA97395@dorifer.heim3.tu-clausthal.de> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Mailer: Mutt 1.0pre2i In-Reply-To: <200005141603.SAA97395@dorifer.heim3.tu-clausthal.de> Organization: LEMIS, PO Box 460, Echunga SA 5153, Australia Phone: +61-8-8388-8286 Fax: +61-8-8388-8725 Mobile: +61-418-838-708 WWW-Home-Page: http://www.lemis.com/~grog X-PGP-Fingerprint: 6B 7B C3 8C 61 CD 54 AF 13 24 52 F8 6D A4 95 EF Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.org On Sunday, 14 May 2000 at 18:03:11 +0200, Oliver Fromme wrote: > In list.freebsd-chat Greg Lehey wrote: >> On Saturday, 13 May 2000 at 15:16:19 +0200, Oliver Fromme wrote: >>> Just for the record, me and most of my friends pronounce TeX >>> like the German "Technik" (sorry, I don't know an English word >>> that has that sound). >>> I know it's not correct, but it's much easier for my German >>> tongue. :-) >> >> Based on the TeXbook, that would be correct. > > It isn't. According to the TeXbook, it's pronounced like the > Greek letter "chi". Germans usually don't pronounce "chi" > correctly either. > >> "It's the 'ch' sound in ... German words like ach". What's the >> problem? > > The "ch" sound in the German words "Technik" ("ich", "echt", > ...) and "ach" ("suchen", "Krach", ...) is different. I think > it depends on the vowel preceding the "ch". Indeed. But this is a detail which probably escaped Knuth's attention. > In the first case, the sound is produced by the middle part of the > tongue (between tongue and palate), in the second case it is > produced by the back part of the tongue (it comes from the throat). > The latter is the correct pronunciation for "chi" and "TeX". What vowel is in TeX? What you're effectively saying is that you'd pronounce "TeX" and "TeXnik" with different sounds. Greg -- Finger grog@lemis.com for PGP public key See complete headers for address and phone numbers To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message