tl;dw: the Swedish and Finnish pronunciations use the same "i" as "Linux", but Torvalds doesn't care if people use the English one.
Showerthoughts
A "Showerthought" is a simple term used to describe the thoughts that pop into your head while you're doing everyday things like taking a shower, driving, or just daydreaming. The most popular seem to be lighthearted clever little truths, hidden in daily life.
Here are some examples to inspire your own showerthoughts:
- Both “200” and “160” are 2 minutes in microwave math
- When you’re a kid, you don’t realize you’re also watching your mom and dad grow up.
- More dreams have been destroyed by alarm clocks than anything else
Rules
- All posts must be showerthoughts
- The entire showerthought must be in the title
- No politics
- If your topic is in a grey area, please phrase it to emphasize the fascinating aspects, not the dramatic aspects. You can do this by avoiding overly politicized terms such as "capitalism" and "communism". If you must make comparisons, you can say something is different without saying something is better/worse.
- A good place for politics is c/politicaldiscussion
- Posts must be original/unique
- Adhere to Lemmy's Code of Conduct and the TOS
If you made it this far, showerthoughts is accepting new mods. This community is generally tame so its not a lot of work, but having a few more mods would help reports get addressed a little sooner.
Whats it like to be a mod? Reports just show up as messages in your Lemmy inbox, and if a different mod has already addressed the report, the message goes away and you never worry about it.
I've heard a lot of people pronounce it "Line-ux" lately. I hope it doesn't blow up into another Gif vs Jif debate.
Edit: and if it was supposed to be pronounced jif it would be spelled "jif", regardless of what Steve Wilhite says.
I started back with kernel 0.12 and called it Line-ucks. I still do and people look at me funny, but it's an old habit and I'm an old dog.
When Linus released his audio file it was already etched into my brain the other way. I do remember being joking that I'm glad his name wasn't Pinus (like the genus for pine trees) after hearing him say it.
Except it doesn't in Finnish, where Linus Torvald is from. Linus and Linux is pronounced the same except for the final consonant.
I'm Italian and I pronounce both "i"s in the same way. Why is English so strange?
In this particular instance, the Great Vowel Shift is to blame. What caused that is up for debate.
In general, English is so strange because it's a mongrel language, incorporating words from a variety of other different languages.