this post was submitted on 06 Sep 2024
305 points (99.0% liked)

Godot

5840 readers
93 users here now

Welcome to the programming.dev Godot community!

This is a place where you can discuss about anything relating to the Godot game engine. Feel free to ask questions, post tutorials, show off your godot game, etc.

Make sure to follow the Godot CoC while chatting

We have a matrix room that can be used for chatting with other members of the community here

Links

Other Communities

Rules

We have a four strike system in this community where you get warned the first time you break a rule, then given a week ban, then given a year ban, then a permanent ban. Certain actions may bypass this and go straight to permanent ban if severe enough and done with malicious intent

Wormhole

[email protected]

Credits

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 79 points 1 month ago (17 children)

Glad to see there are some level heads leading this project. Also great answer to how to pronounce it, the GIF creator should've gone for that instead of the pun.

[–] [email protected] 44 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (4 children)

Yeah except it's named after the play so it's definitely pronounced God-oh. I think people just mispronounce it Go-dot if they haven't heard of the play. Looking at you Mr Linus Tips.

[–] [email protected] 67 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (2 children)

From the article linked on this very post:

Those open source values even extend to how you pronounce the engine's name. We asked if Godot is pronounced "Go-dough," like the play, or "Go-dot."

"It's open source," Verschelde said with a grin. "Pronounce it however you like."

[–] [email protected] 41 points 1 month ago (1 children)

They're being diplomatic. From Wikipedia:

The name "Godot" was chosen due to its relation to Samuel Beckett's play Waiting for Godot, as it represents the never-ending wish of adding new features in the engine, which would get it closer to an exhaustive product, but never will.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

It's clear that it's named after the play. It's also clear that the devs really don't care how you say it.

Personally, I think I'll start doing god-ot, as in "got it".

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 month ago (2 children)

“Go-dough,” like the play

"Like the play" - but where does the stress go? On the final syllable, as in French? (The play was originally written in French.) On the first syllable, as is more usual in British pronunciation of French words? (The author was Irish and apparently this is how he pronounced it - when speaking English.)

[–] [email protected] 19 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

That's exactly the problem with prescriptive pronunciations -- they tend to break down depending on how narrow the transcription, which means they're arbitrary anyway.

If it is truly based on the play, then it would have to be /go.'do/, like the French.

/'go.do/ is indeed an anglicized pronunciation.

Source: am a professional linguist.

Edit: and we should not forget: all human language is ultimately arbitrary in terms of form, modulo limits of human articulation. This is often referred to as Saussure's Principle of Arbitrariness. Which is to say: no one should get bent out of shape about how people pronounce things. If the information transfer was successful, nothing else really matters from a linguistic standpoint.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago

That's partly what I myself tried to hint at with the question and the parenthetical remarks. Various forms have their own claims to "legitimacy".

And the whole issue somewhat surprised me, because I never even considered that there were these different pronunciations at all. I'm not a native English speaker, and I've always used a more French-like pronunciation of "Godot" that is used in my native language. I expected neither the inital stress nor the -ough diphthong in English, but a more French-like pronunciation. As much as I feel comfortable in English and use it every single day, some of these quirks in pronunciation can still catch me off-guard.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I think either is probably fine. Apparently the French stress the syllables equally, not just the second so it's a minor difference.

Actually I just listened to the French pronunciation and it sounds more like they do stress the first syllable to me:

https://youtu.be/fN1VwDpxbXQ?si=1VcffgqbwRelS8zY

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Apparently the French stress the syllables equally, not just the second so it’s a minor difference.

According to what I've read, they do stress the final syllable of the phrase (including multiple words). To foreign ears, this is simplified into always stressing the final syllable.

I absolutely don't trust videos such as the one you link because they're frequently made by non-natives. I've personally seen a number of them using obvious non-native (English) pronunciation. Also, I'd say that particular recording has equal prominence on both syllables. But I wouldn't take it to be representative of French either way.

https://youtu.be/__bLxInvVsM - this should be better

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago (1 children)

And its logo is a robot, so it isn't unreasonable to think it's go-dot

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

But how do you pronounce robot? I've always pronounced it row-boat.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago

if you say "gow-doat" people will barely even register that you said it differently

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago

but also the logo for the project is a robot so pronouncing it like that word makes sense and means it won't be confused with the play: ro-bot, go-dot.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

My name is Empricorn. But it's pronounced "Plarxaniatl"!

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago (1 children)

juː ʃʊd juːz ˌɪntəˈnæʃᵊnᵊl fəʊˈnɛtɪk ˈælfəbɛt fɔː prəˌnʌnsiˈeɪʃᵊn ðɛn

textYou should use international phonetic alphabet for pronunciation then

relevant xkcdhttps://xkcd.com/2819/ The word "Tuesday", with each letter labeled by a box with an arrow: T: As in buffet, u: As in minute, e: As in record, s: As in use, d: As in moped, a: As in bass, y: As in gyro. Below the panel: Pet peeve: Ambiguous pronunciation guides

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago

i hate that i can read this fairly easily

load more comments (12 replies)