5/30/2013

Lie Nucks

Who remembers the Peanuts comic strip?  Show of hands?  Good.  Now, Charlie Brown's philosophic friend was called...

No, he wasn't called LIH-nuss.  Anybody else? 

Very good!  His name was Linus.  LIE-nuss. 

Okay.  So.  Once upon a time there lived a man named Linus Torvalds.  He was the main dude behind the creation of a computer operating system that geeks the world over love to love because it is not Microsoft or Macintosh:  Linux.  The OS name is based on the man's name. 

Here's where it gets sticky.  Torvalds is Finnish.  Like as in from Finland.  He actually pronounces his name LEE-nuss. 

Do people call the OS LEE-nucks?  Of course not. 

Believe it or not, young'uns, back in the early to mid 1990s the people who were actually using  LINUX (do do things like post and read USENET newsgroup messages) called it LIE-nucks.  And they called Linus Torvalds LIE-nuss, like the comic strip character that Mr. Torvalds admits he was (at least partly) named after. 

LIE-nuss.  LIE-nucks.  Because this is America, not ferthelovagod Finland or France or some such heathen socialist backwater. 

LIE-nucks.  If nothing else the pronunciation will annoy

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