[comp.text] Pronunciation of TeX?

chari@nueces.cactus.org (Christopher M. Whatley) (09/15/89)

Well, I had always thought that TeX was pronounced as "tecks" but,
yesterday, someone said it was pronounced "teck". Well, which is
right?

Chris

-- 
Chris Whatley			chari@nueces.cactus.org
P.O. Box 50254			!nueces!chari@cs.utexas.edu
Austin, TX 78763		chari@walt.cc.utexas.edu
512/499-0475

phil@delta.eecs.nwu.edu (William LeFebvre) (09/18/89)

In article <1989Sep14.213548.6704@nueces.cactus.org> chari@nueces.UUCP (Christopher M. Whatley) writes:
>
>Well, I had always thought that TeX was pronounced as "tecks" but,
>yesterday, someone said it was pronounced "teck". Well, which is
>right?

Go read chapter 1 of The TeXBook:

"Insiders pronounce the X of TeX as a Greek chi, not as an 'x', so
that TeX rhymes with the word blecchhh.  It's the 'ch' sound in
Scottish words like loch or German words like ach; it's Spanish 'j'
and a Russian 'kh'."

Although I don't necessarily agree with all of his language examples,
(and I can't seem to find "blecchhh" in my English dictionary), I
would say that your "someone" was closer to correct that you were.




		William LeFebvre
		Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
		Northwestern University
		<phil@eecs.nwu.edu>

zs04+@andrew.cmu.edu (Zachary T. Smith) (09/19/89)

the letters are tau-epsilon-chi, so it's pronounced neither tecks nor
teck,
but tehk. rhymes with blech.

see the TeXbook by donald knuth

-Zach T. Smith (zs04+@andrew.cmu.edu)

daved@cbnewsl.ATT.COM (david.dougherty) (09/20/89)

Come on!  Give me a break!!  Of all the inane things to talk
about.  TeX is a wonderful piece of software, the complexity
of which is difficult to fully grasp.  Wouldn't it be more ap-
propriate to discuss the mysteries of this wonderfully expressive
language, instead of beating around the bush about something so
ridiculous.  Gawd, even DEK didn't spend that much time talking
about it!