Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!mailrus!husc6!bbn!bbn.com!cosell From: cosell@bbn.com (Bernie Cosell) Newsgroups: comp.text Subject: Re: TeX pronounciation Keywords: How, why? Message-ID: <29780@bbn.COM> Date: 18 Sep 88 17:23:21 GMT References: <374@polyof.UUCP> <3470@phri.UUCP> Sender: news@bbn.COM Reply-To: cosell@BBN.COM (Bernie Cosell) Organization: Bolt Beranek and Newman Inc., Cambridge MA Lines: 28 In article <3470@phri.UUCP> roy@phri.UUCP (Roy Smith) writes: }In article <374@polyof.UUCP> paul@polyof.UUCP (A1 Mr. Curran) writes: }> How does one pronounce the term "TeX." } } The official line is something along these lines. The spelling of }TeX is not actually Tee-Eee-Eks, but the Greek Tau-Epsilon-Chi and is }pronounced Tech which sort of rhymes with bleech. I know this thread is (thankfully) dead, but let me point out that this whole folk etymology Knuth goes through, greek letters and other such nonsense to steer clear of a Honeywell product, is surely a bit suspect around the edges. Consider your chances if you decided to call your little software firm "Irving's Better Modules" and then made your company logo IbM (that's Iota/Beta/Mu). I ain't a lawyer, and this ain't misc.legal, but this has always seemed legally bogus to me (not to mention cutesy and contrived). Either Knuth didn't NEED Honeywell's permission (the name wasn't trademarked, for example), or Honeywell _gave_ their permission -- in either case the "it's all Greek" shaggy dog story is extraneous, no? [Note that this has nothing to do with the *pronunciation* of "TeX" -- DEK can try to get people to pronounce it any way he wants... I just wish he would have spared us the Greek disgression] __ / ) Bernie Cosell /--< _ __ __ o _ BBN Sys & Tech, Cambridge, MA 02238 /___/_(<_/ (_/) )_(_(<_ cosell@bbn.com