this post was submitted on 26 Feb 2025
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nginx ("engine x") is an HTTP web server, reverse proxy, content cache, load balancer, TCP/UDP proxy server, and mail proxy server. […] [1]

I still pronounce it as "n-jinx" in my head.

References

  1. Title (website): "nginx". Publisher: NGINX. Accessed: 2025-02-26T23:25Z. URI: https://nginx.org/en/.
    • §"nginx". ¶1.
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[–] [email protected] 133 points 2 months ago (6 children)

And JSON is pronounced “javascripton“

[–] [email protected] 93 points 2 months ago

Oh my god it's Javascripton Bourne!

[–] [email protected] 39 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

Occasionally i feel myself longing back to the good ol' JSOFF times.

[–] [email protected] 60 points 2 months ago (2 children)
[–] [email protected] 19 points 2 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 14 points 2 months ago

It's fantastic too!

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[–] [email protected] 26 points 2 months ago

That is the lamest decepticon transformer I’ve ever heard of

[–] [email protected] 18 points 2 months ago (3 children)

JavaScript is actually pronounced with a g.

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[–] [email protected] 17 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (15 children)

Wtf?

It's Jason. If they wanted it pronounced that way, they should've spelled it differently...

Like GIF

Sorry, no, at least one could argue GIF. JSON is a single freakin' vowel short of a common male name.

Morons.

[–] [email protected] 32 points 2 months ago (9 children)

Jason = jay-sun
JSON = jay-sawn

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[–] [email protected] 15 points 2 months ago (3 children)

They're joking. js doesn't even officially stand for JavaScript due to Oracle's IP claim over the JavaScript name.

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[–] [email protected] 95 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I've been pronouncing it N-gin-X, which is probably close enough once slurred together

[–] [email protected] 25 points 2 months ago (2 children)

I always called it “in-gen-ix”, which doesn’t even make sense now that I think about it.

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[–] [email protected] 94 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (9 children)

There's a linux file called fstab which is often pronounced f-s-tab because it's a table of file systems. It was somewhat surprising to hear Dave Plummer pronounce it as "f-stab", as in stabbing someone...

[–] [email protected] 64 points 2 months ago (1 children)

It'll forever be F-stab in my head

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[–] [email protected] 32 points 2 months ago (3 children)

Whereas fsck, short for "file system check", should be pronounced "fisk" when someone in a suit is around, otherwise it's "fuck".

[–] [email protected] 13 points 2 months ago

It's ef sock in my head

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[–] [email protected] 20 points 2 months ago (2 children)

f-s-tab is feeble. Unsatisfactory. Bureaucratic.

f-stab is jocose. Nonchalant. Sharp.

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[–] [email protected] 60 points 2 months ago (4 children)
[–] [email protected] 50 points 2 months ago

I've always pronounced it "not-Apache"

[–] [email protected] 49 points 2 months ago (10 children)

I laughed out loud when I first learned that imgur is supposed to be pronounced as "imager'... well you fuckin chose the wrong combination of letters for that didn't ya

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[–] [email protected] 46 points 2 months ago (4 children)
[–] [email protected] 16 points 2 months ago (6 children)
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[–] [email protected] 45 points 2 months ago (7 children)

like how curl in my head is "curl" and not "c-url"

[–] [email protected] 54 points 2 months ago

It is pronounced like "curl" though!

We pronounce curl with an initial k sound. It rhymes with words like girl and earl. This is a short WAV file to help you:

https://media.merriam-webster.com/soundc11/c/curl0001.wav

https://curl.se/docs/faq.html#What_is_cURL

[–] [email protected] 28 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

…it's not "curl"?

EDIT (2025-02-27T04:15Z):

cURL (pronounced like "curl", /kɜːrl/) […] [1]

🤔

References

  1. Title (article): "cURL". Publisher: Wikipedia. Published: 2025-02-20T12:12Z. Accessed: 2025-02-27T04:17Z. URI: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CURL.
    • ¶1
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[–] [email protected] 36 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

When I first heard someone say SCSI out loud describing the drives in a server, I responded with, "No, they're actually high-end drives."

[–] [email protected] 35 points 2 months ago (8 children)

And I will always pronounce SQL as “squeal”

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[–] [email protected] 28 points 2 months ago (18 children)

And postgresql is pronounced post-gres-Q-L, even though it probably should be post-gre-SQL

[–] [email protected] 24 points 2 months ago

I just pronounce it postgres. That's the original name of the database. It originally had its own query language (quel), and SQL was later retrofitted onto it and called PostgreSQL. But the original quel language is long gone that we may as well go back to calling it just Postgres.

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[–] [email protected] 28 points 2 months ago (5 children)

I've never heard it pronounced any other way than "engine x".

[–] [email protected] 24 points 2 months ago

I've never heard it pronounced. Which is why I also thought it was "n-jinx"

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[–] [email protected] 26 points 2 months ago (5 children)

Wow, I never knew people thought it was pronounced differently. Never even considered it looked like jinx.

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[–] [email protected] 24 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I went for n-ginx too. I've known for a while that it's actually n-gin-x but have to think carefully to not revert back.

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[–] [email protected] 23 points 2 months ago (2 children)
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[–] [email protected] 22 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

My workplace calls it "n-jinx", we know its nonstandard but its still what is understood by the team.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 2 months ago (4 children)

As always, first impressions count. There is no way I'm starting to call it engine x now, except for fun.

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[–] [email protected] 19 points 2 months ago (14 children)

I thought it was pronounced N-G-N-X

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[–] [email protected] 18 points 2 months ago (5 children)

Idiot. Using English letters to try to represent sounds they don't normally make. It didn't work for gif (pronounced commonly as gif instead of jif), why would they think it would work for them?

[–] [email protected] 38 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (12 children)

first rule of english pronunciation: there are no rules. All that matters is if people understand what you mean when you say it.

I gave up on this discussion when you have to consider gin, generate, giraffe, gene, gym, etc

Also I pronounce it with the soft sound because that's what it sounds like in the bloody alphabet.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (4 children)

See also ghoti (fish). English orthography only works by agreement, not rules

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[–] [email protected] 15 points 2 months ago (1 children)

You have to say it in a commanding Japanese accent... Engine X

It sounds way cooler that way

[–] [email protected] 15 points 2 months ago

One time I was getting estimates for server software for an embedded device I had made. In a teleconference, I told one company that our prototype server ran on nginx. They emailed us an estimate saying we had to switch our embedded system to Windows 10 IoT Enterprise, and put the server on Microsoft's cloud, because "Engine X is not an enterprise web server."

[–] [email protected] 15 points 2 months ago

"nnnnn-ghinks"

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