nginx (“engine x”) is an HTTP web server, reverse proxy, content cache, load balancer, TCP/UDP proxy server, and mail proxy server. […] [1]

I still pronounce it as “n-jinx” in my head.

References
  1. Title (website): “nginx”. Publisher: NGINX. Accessed: 2025-02-26T23:25Z. URI: https://nginx.org/en/.
    • §“nginx”. ¶1.
    • @[email protected]
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      2 months ago

      Wtf?

      It’s Jason. If they wanted it pronounced that way, they should’ve spelled it differently…

      Like GIF

      Sorry, no, at least one could argue GIF. JSON is a single freakin’ vowel short of a common male name.

      Morons.

      • @[email protected]
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        122 months ago

        They’re joking. js doesn’t even officially stand for JavaScript due to Oracle’s IP claim over the JavaScript name.

        • @[email protected]
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          2 months ago

          No, it’s pronounced Jason. Douglas Crockford was just too laissez-faire to correct anyone on it probably because he didn’t give a fuck.

          • @[email protected]
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            42 months ago

            If you really just say Jason instead of jaysawn/J-sohn you’re nuts and probably drive everyone crazy with that

            • @[email protected]
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              2 months ago

              You & your buddies can keep pronouncing it jaysawn & sounding like complete dorks if it makes you feel better. However, it was clearly intended to be pronounced naturally as Jason like its inventor pronounces it.

              Believing otherwise is almost as bad as the plebs who think the symbol ∅ is inspired by Greek letter φ instead of Scandinavian letter Ø.

              • @[email protected]
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                12 months ago

                Didn’t realize I was buddies with 99% of everyone that’s interacted with JSON!

                Also didn’t know people used the term ‘plebs’ unironically, you sound like an absolute joy to be around

                • @[email protected]
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                  2 months ago

                  You seem in irrational need for validation of your pronunciation despite clear justification against it. Cool ad populum. Fly that insecurity flag high.

        • warm
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          192 months ago

          I always thought the G stood for graphics, but now I know it stands for giraffics.

          • @[email protected]
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            2 months ago

            It doesn’t matter what it stands for. That’s not how acronyms work.

            You don’t say “yolwa” for “YOLO”
            You don’t say “Ah-ih-dees” for “AIDS”
            You don’t say “britches” for “BRICS”
            You don’t say “sue-knee” for “CUNY” (City University of New York) Etc.

            And if you want to argue specifically about G:
            You don’t say “Jad” for “GAD” (generalized anxiety disorder)
            You don’t say “joes” for “GOES” (Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite)

            It’s not a hill I’m going to die on, I use both pronunciations, but the only argument I’ve ever believed for the proper one is that the creator pronounced it “jif”. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/GIF#Pronunciation

            Now let’s talk about “gibs” you heathens.

            • @[email protected]
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              42 months ago

              SCUBA and NASA are always the ones I use against that argument. It would be Skuh-baa instead of scooba, and neh-sa instead of nah-suh.

              And no matter what way it was spelled, it’s the only word we’re still arguing about that literally has a song to go with it to make sure everyone pronounced it correctly. It’s pretty clearly a soft g, because it was a marketing trick, not a dictionary word. It doesn’t have to follow any rules of English, just like all those companies just removing random letters and changing ck for x, etc. Flickr, tumblr, Grindr, scribd, Lyft, Kwik, Cheez, etc etc etc. Twitter was originally even twttr.

              • @[email protected]
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                2 months ago

                People forget in the 90s/00s both GIF and JIF were relatively common image file types. It was only logical to use the hard G for GIF. So that’s how we used it. This overrules all arguments of how acronyms work or what the creator originally called it.

                • @[email protected]
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                  32 months ago

                  Bah, I was there. .jif was barely used and came 5 years after. They should have used a different name!

                • @[email protected]
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                  22 months ago

                  nobody was using jif as a file type in the 90s, and no it wasn’t “only logical to use the hard G”. There are plenty of sources stating that no one pronounced it with a soft g up until it got popular as an image format on social media. It was universally understood to be a play on the peanut butter name. There are plenty of sources on this, I’m sorry but you’re either just making shit up or you were the only person to call it with a hard g in the 90s.

            • @[email protected]
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              22 months ago

              You don’t say “sue-knee” for “CUNY” (City University of New York) Etc.

              Of course not, then it would conflict with SUNY (State University of New York)

            • warm
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              32 months ago

              I thought we were having a bit of a joke, but then you really went and gave me a gift of paragraphs.

              I think the creator was keeping the joke running by saying that. The word gift is why people prefer to say gif over jif, it’s how we were taught to pronounce “gif”. The rest of the g words are irrelevant to be honest.

  • Chris
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    252 months ago

    I went for n-ginx too. I’ve known for a while that it’s actually n-gin-x but have to think carefully to not revert back.

  • @[email protected]
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    282 months ago

    Wow, I never knew people thought it was pronounced differently. Never even considered it looked like jinx.

    • @[email protected]
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      2 months ago

      Rules of English, the closest I’d come is n-jinx. You don’t pronounce letters individually, unless reciting the alphabet or something.

      Unless you pronounce the letter “B” the same way you say it, like the bug that makes honey.

      We don’t say “beenefits” or “bee eee an eee eef eye tee ess”

      • @[email protected]
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        142 months ago

        Well you see, this is software so the rules break down here in favor of cool. I guess I just grew up surrounded by naming conventions like that so could easily identify it.

      • ignirtoq
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        62 months ago

        Why would I pronounce something with rules of English that’s not an English word? When I say the word jalapeno, I pronounce the tilde on the n even though in English it’s neither written with the tilde nor written with a letter combination that would produce that sound through standard English spelling.

        • @[email protected]
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          42 months ago

          Yeah lots of people don’t realize that 1. English rules don’t matter a majority of the time, 2. English has a lot of loan words that people mispronounce, not just mispronounce from the perspective of the owning language but from an English rules perspective as well, and 3. Proper nouns don’t give a shit about anything. GIF is a proper noun, created and owned by a company. They get to call it whatever they want and the rules of the language don’t matter. I

        • @[email protected]
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          12 months ago

          that’s not how most people do though, a lot of people will nativize words to the language they’re speaking or are most used to. Like with your example of “jalapeno” that’s… one of the more famous words for people to pronounce in wild ways, there’s a video of a swedish guy who manages to turn it into “japaleno” because that’s more compatible with swedish.

    • @[email protected]
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      32 months ago

      I mean every time I hear about the damn thing it’s because it’s been misconfigured and is causing some fucking ruckus. The whole thing is cursed so jinx really feels appropriate where I’m standing from.

  • @[email protected]
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    2 months ago

    When I first heard someone say SCSI out loud describing the drives in a server, I responded with, “No, they’re actually high-end drives.”

  • @[email protected]
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    122 months ago

    If you want people to pronounce your project name correctly you should spell it that way. Having a FAQ on pronunciation means you’ve messed up and lost already. Want it to be called “Engine X”? Call it “Engine X”.

    My favourite is SAP not wanting people to call it Sap but to spell it out S.A.P. Well sorry, but it’s a CVC word, literally the first kind of word everyone learns.

  • @[email protected]
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    2 months ago

    There’s a linux file called fstab which is often pronounced f-s-tab because it’s a table of file systems. It was somewhat surprising to hear Dave Plummer pronounce it as “f-stab”, as in stabbing someone…

  • Blaster M
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    152 months ago

    You have to say it in a commanding Japanese accent… Engine X

    It sounds way cooler that way

  • @[email protected]
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    102 months ago

    I can’t stop pronouncing USAID as u said even after i finally heard it instead of just reading it