Comments on: Saying lib out loud

By: Hillshum

Hillshum — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 13:19:42 +0000

It’s English. And liberty and library do have the same root

By: jdgordon

jdgordon — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 02:03:37 +0000

lets get one thing straight… americans speak american not english
I’ve always pronounced lib as in liberty and char as in charcoal…
I dont think I’ve ever been in a position where ioctl comes up but its being pronounced by the little voice in my head as eye-oh-control or spelt letter by letter…

the whole thing doesnt make sense… whats the logic behind saying liberty with a soft i (i hope im getting the terminology right) and library with a hard i when its liberty that has the e which should make it a hard i?

Also, what the heck is with pronouncing finance with the same soft i? I know by my previous statement that would make sense, but it just sounds funny, its fEYEnance…

By: Hillshum

Hillshum — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 22:05:44 +0000

Oh and char for me is like charcoal

By: LambdaCalculus379

LambdaCalculus379 — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 13:47:41 +0000

As another native English speaker, I’ve always pronounced the “lib” in many “lib*” anything as in “liberty”. I also say cURL as “curl”. Some, like libmtp for example, are “lib-M-T-P”.

By: daniel

daniel — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 10:35:55 +0000

Jonathan Wakely at http://advogato.org/person/redi/diary/166.html claims the lib pronunciation depends on if you’re an British or American English speaker, but that doesn’t match what you and others told me…

By: XavierGr

XavierGr — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 21:58:23 +0000

I’ve never heard anyone with native English pronunciation say it, but without a reason I always pronounce it the “liberty” way. I don’t know, maybe I am wrong but this was more natural for me.

By: daniel

daniel — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 18:58:21 +0000

I seems ‘liberty’ is winning (based on some off-blog chats I’ve also had on the topic) pretty clearly.

Further, I call the variable type char as in ‘charity’ for some reason. ioctl I spell each letter (in English). I doubt I would even understand what “eye octal” would refer to if someone would say it (before this)! … and stdio.h is “standard I-O dot h” for me.

By: Micah Cowan

Micah Cowan — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 17:20:50 +0000

I’m also a native of the States. I can’t recall ever hearing anyone ever pronounce it as the “lib” in “library”, but always as “liberty”. And I also pronounce “cURL” as the actual English word “curl”.

OTOH, I usually pronounce “char” (the C type) as the first syllable in “character” (like “care”). I think I’m in the minority on that; I also hear “char” (as the English word) and “car”.

I recently heard someone being lightly ribbed for pronouncing “ioctl” as I/O kuh-tll (which is how I’ve always pronounced it internally) as being “old-fashioned”, as apparently all the kids these days are pronouncing it “eye octal” (I hate that, personally).

I’ve never known how to pronounce . I think I actually just say “standard I/O dot h” or something.

By: Hillshum

Hillshum — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 15:58:00 +0000

I, a native speaker (from America) saw ‘lib’ and started saying lib as in liberty. I don’t know much about others though