Pronunciation guide for UNIX

How do I pronounce "vi" , or "!", or "/*", or ...? You can start a very long and pointless discussion by wondering about this topic on the net. Some people say "vye", some say "vee-eye" (the vi manual suggests this) and some Roman numerologists say "six". How you pronounce "vi" has nothing to do with whether or not you are a true Unix wizard.

Similarly, you'll find that some people pronounce "char" as "care", and that there are lots of ways to say "#" or "/*" or "!" or "tty" or "/etc". No one pronunciation is correct - enjoy the regional dialects and accents.

Key:

 *   Derived from UNIX
 +  Derived from
 &  Derived from
 #  Deserving further explanation, see explanations at the end.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
			   -- SINGLE CHARACTERS --

     SPACE, blank, ghost&

!    EXCLAMATION POINT, exclamation (mark), (ex)clam, excl, wow, hey, boing,
	bang#, shout, yell, shriek, pling, factorial, ball-bat, smash, cuss,
	store#, potion&, not*+, dammit*#

"    QUOTATION MARK, (double) quote, dirk, literal mark, rabbit ears,
	double ping, double glitch, amulet&, web&, inverted commas

#    CROSSHATCH, pound, pound sign, number, number sign, sharp, octothorpe#,
	hash, (garden) fence, crunch, mesh, hex, flash, grid, pig-pen,
	tictactoe, scratch (mark), (garden) gate, hak, oof, rake, sink&,
	corridor&, unequal#, punch mark

$    DOLLAR SIGN, dollar, cash, currency symbol, buck, string#, escape#, 
	ding, big-money, gold&, Sonne#

%    PERCENT SIGN, percent, mod+, shift-5, double-oh-seven, grapes, food&

&    AMPERSAND, and, amper, address+, shift-7, andpersand, snowman,
	bitand+, donald duck#, daemon&, background*, pretzel

'    APOSTROPHE, (single) quote, tick, prime, irk, pop, spark, glitch,
	lurker above&

*    ASTERISK, star, splat, spider, aster, times, wildcard*, gear, dingle,
	(Nathan) Hale#, bug, gem&, twinkle, funny button#, pine cone, glob*

()   PARENTHESES, parens, round brackets, bananas, ears, bowlegs
(    LEFT PARENTHESIS,  (open) paren,  so,  wane,  parenthesee,   open,  sad,
	tool&
)    RIGHT PARENTHESIS, already, wax, unparenthesee, close (paren), happy,
	thesis, weapon&

+    PLUS SIGN, plus, add, cross, and, intersection, door&, spellbook&

,    COMMA, tail, trapper&

-    HYPHEN, minus (sign), dash, dak, option, flag, negative (sign), worm,
	bithorpe#

.    PERIOD, dot, decimal (point), (radix) point, spot, full stop,
	put#, floor&

/    SLASH, stroke, virgule, solidus, slant, diagonal, over, slat, slak,
	across#, compress#, reduce#, replicate#, spare, divided-by, wand&,
	forward slash, shilling#

:    COLON, two-spot, double dot, dots, chameleon&

;    SEMICOLON, semi, hybrid, giant eel&, go-on#

<>   ANGLE BRACKETS, angles, funnels, brokets, pointy brackets, widgets
<    LESS THAN,    less, read from*, from*,        in*,  comesfrom*, crunch,
	sucks, left chevron#, open pointy (brack[et]), bra#, upstairs&, west,
	(left|open) widget
>    GREATER THAN, more, write to*,  into/toward*, out*, gazinta*,   zap,
	blows, right chevron#, closing pointy (brack[et]), ket#, downstairs&,
	east, (right|close) widget

=    EQUAL SIGN, equal(s), gets, becomes, quadrathorpe#, half-mesh, ring&

?    QUESTION MARK, question, query, whatmark, what, wildchar*, huh, ques,
	kwes, quiz, quark, hook, scroll&, interrogation point

@    AT SIGN, at, each, vortex, whirl, whirlpool, cyclone, snail, ape (tail),
	cat, snable-a#, trunk-a#, rose, cabbage, Mercantile symbol, strudel#,
	fetch#, shopkeeper&, human&, commercial-at, monkey (tail)

[]   BRACKETS, square brackets, U-turns, edged parentheses
[    LEFT BRACKET,  bracket,   bra, (left) square (brack[et]),   opensquare,
	armor&
]    RIGHT BRACKET, unbracket, ket, right square (brack[et]), unsquare, close,
	mimic&

\    BACKSLASH, reversed virgule, bash, (back)slant, backwhack, backslat,
	escape*, backslak, bak, scan#, expand#, opulent throne&, slosh, slope,
	blash

^    CIRCUMFLEX, caret, carrot, (top)hat, cap, uphat, party hat, housetop, 
	up arrow, control, boink, chevron, hiccup, power, to-the(-power), fang,
	sharkfin, and#, xor+, wok, trap&, pointer#, pipe*, upper-than#

_    UNDERSCORE, underline, underbar, under, score, backarrow, flatworm, blank,
	chain&, gets#, dash#, sneak

`    GRAVE, (grave/acute) accent, backquote, left/open quote, backprime, 
	unapostrophe, backspark, birk, blugle, backtick, push, backglitch,
	backping, execute#, boulder&, rock&, blip

{}   BRACES, curly braces, squiggly braces, curly brackets, squiggle brackets,
	Tuborgs#, ponds, curly chevrons#, squirrly braces, hitchcocks#,
	chippendale brackets#
{    LEFT BRACE,  brace,   curly,   leftit, embrace,  openbrace, begin+,
	fountain&
}    RIGHT BRACE, unbrace, uncurly, rytit,  bracelet, close,     end+, a pool&

|    VERTICAL BAR, pipe*, pipe to*, vertical line, broken line#, bar, or+,
	bitor+, vert, v-bar, spike, to*, gazinta*, thru*, pipesinta*, tube,
	mark, whack, gutter, wall&

~    TILDE, twiddle, tilda, tildee, wave, squiggle, swung dash, approx, 
	wiggle, enyay#, home*, worm, not+

			-- MULTIPLE CHARACTER STRINGS --

!?	interrobang (one overlapped character)
*/	asterslash+, times-div#
/*   	slashterix+, slashaster
:=	becomes#
<-	gets
<<	left-shift+, double smaller
<>	unequal#
>>	appends*, cat-astrophe, right-shift+, double greater
->	arrow+, pointer to+, hiccup+
#!	sh'bang, wallop
\!*	bash-bang-splat
()	nil#
&&	and+, and-and+, amper-amper, succeeds-then*
||	or+, or-or+, fails-then*

				-- NOTES --

! bang		comes from old card punch phenom where punching ! code made a
		loud noise; however, this pronunciation is used in the (non-
		computerized) publishing and typesetting industry in the U.S.
		too, so ...
		Alternatively it could have come from comic books, where the
		words each character utters are shown in a "balloon" near that
		character's head.  When one character shoots another, it is
		common to see a balloon pointing at the barrel of the gun to
		denote that the gun had been fired, not merely aimed. 
		That balloon contained the word "!" -- hence, "!" == "Bang!" 
! store		from FORTH
! dammit	as in "quit, dammit!" while exiting vi and hoping one hasn't
		clobbered a file too badly
# octothorpe	from Bell System (orig. octalthorpe)
# unequal	e.g. Modula-2
$ string	from BASIC
$ escape	from TOPS-10
$ Sonne		In the "socialist" countries they used and are using all kinds
		of IBM clones (hardware + sw). It was a common practice just
		to rename everything (IBM 360 --> ESER 1040 etc.).
		Of course the "dollar" sign had to be renamed - it became the
		"international currency symbol" which looks like a circle with
		4 rays spreading from it:
			  ____
			\/    \/
			/      \
			\      /
			/\____/\

		Because it looks like a (small) shining sun, in the German
		Democratic Republic it was usually called "Sonne" (sun).
& donald duck	from the Danish "Anders And", which means "Donald Duck"
* splat		from DEC "spider" glyph
* Nathan Hale	"I have but one asterisk for my country."
* funny button	at Pacific Bell, * was referred to by employees as the "funny
		button", which did not please management at all when it became
		part of the corporate logo of Pacific Telesis, the holding
		company ...
*/ times-div	from FORTH
= quadrathorpe	half an octothorpe
- bithorpe	half a quadrathorpe (So what's a monothorpe?)
. put		Victor Borge's Phonetic Punctuation which dates back to the
		middle 1950's
/ across	APL
/ compress	APL
/ reduce	APL
/ replicate	APL
/ shilling	from the British currency symbol
:= becomes	e.g. Pascal
; go-on		Algol68
< left chevron	from the military: worn vertically on the sleeve to signify
		rating
< bra		from quantum mechanics
<> unequal	e.g. Pascal
> right chevron	see "< left chevron"
> ket		from quantum mechanics
@ snable-a	from Danish; may translate as "trunk-a"
@ trunk-a	"trunk" = "elephant nose"
@ strudel	as in Austrian apple cake
@ fetch		from FORTH
\ scan		APL
\ expand	APL
^ and		from formal logic
^ pointer	from PASCAL
^ upper-than	cf. > and <
_ gets		some alternative representation of underscore resembles a
		backarrow
_ dash		as distinct from '-' == minus
` execute	from shell command substitution
{} Tuborgs	from advertizing for well-known Danish beverage
{} curly chevr.	see "< left chevron"
{} hitchcocks	from the old Alfred Hitchcock show, with the stylized profile
		of the man
{} chipp. br.	after Chippendale chairs
| broken line	EBCDIC has two vertical bars, one solid and one broken.
~ enyay		from the Spanish n-tilde
() nil		LISP
Version 2.5, 1997