xml-dev - Re: A or An

[John Cowan <jcowan@reutershealth.com>]

Peter Murray-Rust wrote:

>         a concatenation of the anglophone pronunciation of the letters
> ("ex-em-el", "ex-ess-el", "ex-ess-el-tee") (but "Z"?)

Why should there be a single standard for this?  Let the zee-ers and the
zedders have each their own way.  ("Zee" in the U.S., "zed" in all other
countries AFAIK.)  Although I have heard that Z, the specification formalism,
is pronounced "zed" even in the U.S.

> ELSE the authors of the spec could usefully suggest pronunciation.

I don't know how really useful that would be.  There was a movement in the
early days of Posix to note the pronunciation "pah-ziks" in the standard,
reflecting American English: those who wanted to pronounce "Posix" like
their version of "positive" protested, and rightly so IMHO.

I've always wondered how one says "Unix" in French.  Is there a split
between purist /yni/ and Franglais /juniks/?

-- 

Schlingt dreifach einen Kreis um dies! || John Cowan <jcowan@reutershealth.com>
Schliesst euer Aug vor heiliger Schau,  || http://www.reutershealth.com
Denn er genoss vom Honig-Tau,           || http://www.ccil.org/~cowan
Und trank die Milch vom Paradies.            -- Coleridge (tr. Politzer)

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