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Re: Never Argue Again About The Pronunciation Of “OS X” (Proof Included)

Louis Wilson — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 14:58:26 -0000

modex, I agree with your premise (It can be pronounced both ways), but not your argument (and insults).

First, I would consider it inaccurate to say that that OS X is the 10th generation of the Mac OS. It was not descended from the other nine OSs produced by Apple. You could perhaps say that OS X is the tenth operating system released by Apple, though.

Second, OS X is not BSD either, though they share a common heritage. OS X's kernel is called Darwin and is derived from NeXTSTEP, which (although it used some BSD code) was a successor of the Mach kernel.

Third, the only time you are running the Bourne-Again Shell is when you explicitly run it, e.g. in a terminal. It's not performing your regular GUI tasks.

I'm not really sure what you mean when you say that it behaves like X-windows: the interface, while not a part of the Darwin kernel, is still a huge part of OS X. Darwin itself isn't a very compelling operating system, it's the combination of Cocoa, Quartz, et al. that make it a good OS.

Re: Never Argue Again About The Pronunciation Of “OS X” (Proof Included)

modex — Wed, 24 Oct 2007 16:16:26 -0000

It can be pronounced both ways you blogging douche. It is both the 10th generation of the mac OS, and as well as an OS that behaves like X-windows (that is, a gui that runs on top of a unix kernel.. in this case BSD running the bourne again shell).

Re: Never Argue Again About The Pronunciation Of “OS X” (Proof Included)

Bugsy Malone — Wed, 24 Oct 2007 13:58:30 -0000

"Mac OS X" is pronounced "Mac o' sex". That is how the early developers referred to it. The first time I heard "OS ten" was in a presentation from Jobs. the "ex" sound was banned for marketing reasons, to avoid indecent connotations.

Bugsy Malone

Re: Never Argue Again About The Pronunciation Of “OS X” (Proof Included)

Brian — Wed, 24 Oct 2007 11:36:07 -0000

This argument is ridiculous. No matter how you may want to pronounce it, the fact is Apple has an operating system called OS X, which THEY chose to pronounce OS Ten. THAT is the correct way to pronounce it. It's really not up for discussion since THEY made it up and THEY decide how it should be pronounced. The fact that they chose to use an X is purely a marketing issue and has nothing to do with anything based in linguistics. The fact is, seeing "OS 10" or "OS Ten" is simply not as cool as seeing "OS X". Yes, the X has all the references to the roman numeral, NeXT, and UNIX, but that doesn't have anything to do with the fact that it is pronounced "OS Ten".

The same goes for Linux. Just because you grew up with a Peanuts character named Linus, doesn't mean that Linux is pronounced with a long "i".

There are still people out there that don't pronounce the "-ee" at the end of Nike because they are trying to follow English grammatical rules. Referring to OS X as OS eks, is just as wrong.

Have you ever seen signs at a railroad crossing? It's usually Railroad X-ing or Xing. You wouldn't pronounce that eks-ing or zing, would you? The X represents "cross", just as the X in "OS X" represents the number 10, not the letter X.

I guess if you pronounce Xmas the way it is written instead of Christmas, you'll never understand.

Re: Never Argue Again About The Pronunciation Of “OS X” (Proof Included)

Taylor Redden — Wed, 24 Oct 2007 06:28:10 -0000

so i guess i was wrong all those years playing megaman eks, not megaman ten....

Re: Never Argue Again About The Pronunciation Of “OS X” (Proof Included)

Henrik — Wed, 24 Oct 2007 05:35:30 -0000

So the Apple products Xserve and Xsan are pronounced "ten-serve" and "ten-san" respectively then.

Re: Never Argue Again About The Pronunciation Of “OS X” (Proof Included)

AWWWW — Wed, 24 Oct 2007 01:12:17 -0000

Higgidy higgidy who gives a fuck.

Re: Never Argue Again About The Pronunciation Of “OS X” (Proof Included)

Macfan — Wed, 24 Oct 2007 00:40:29 -0000

X is for UNIX and 10. However, I reject the claim that Mac OS X is Mac OS 10, which implies it is the direct descendant of Mac OS 9 (as Mac OS 8 was the descendant of Mac OS 7). That is simply not the case. It is "Mac OS" (with quotes) X because it is an X (for Unix) OS and not a Mac OS.

Re: Never Argue Again About The Pronunciation Of “OS X” (Proof Included)

Gav — Tue, 23 Oct 2007 23:04:59 -0000

Perhaps Apple could've just bloody called it OS 10 and saved us the bother of arguing over another stupid marketing manoeuvre by the kings of selling cool-but-substandard tat.

Re: Never Argue Again About The Pronunciation Of “OS X” (Proof Included)

Dale — Fri, 24 Aug 2007 06:42:15 -0000

If they wanted it to be pronounced "ten", they should have called it OS 10 or OS Ten. I will continue to pronounce it OS "EKS".

I also correctly pronounce Brett Favre's last name as "FAH VRUH", and Dwyane Wade's first name as "DWY-YANE".

Re: Never Argue Again About The Pronunciation Of “OS X” (Proof Included)

David — Mon, 29 Jan 2007 10:36:00 -0000

Yes, Lee-noose Torvalds pronounces it Lee-nooks. So do I (but with my American accent it comes out Len-ucks).

Now if I could only figure out how to pronounce these new SATA harddrives. I say it like Satan without the n, but my friends say Sat-uh or S-A-T-A.

Gasp! What am I to do now?

Re: Never Argue Again About The Pronunciation Of “OS X” (Proof Included)

zhasper — Sat, 27 Jan 2007 18:11:08 -0000

Valdean, you're wrong.

You pronounce Linux lee-nux because that's how the creator of Linux wants you to pronounce it - cf http://www.paul.sladen.org/...

Apple/Steve Jobs have made it clear that they prefer their creation to be pronounced OS Ten.

Sure, you can go ahead and pronounce it however you like... but you're wrong ;)

Re: Never Argue Again About The Pronunciation Of “OS X” (Proof Included)

Valdeane W. Brown — Sat, 27 Jan 2007 05:15:28 -0000

For me it's OS EKS not OS 10. And I've got a number of reasons for that.

The Roman numeral X is pronounced EKS not "ten". Just like there are 10 type of people (viz, those who know binary and those who don't) there are also those who know who to prounce the Roman numeral when they see, and there are those who don't know how to pronounce it.

Yes, there was OS 8 and OS 9 and so the NEXT numbered version would be OS 10; otherwise the others would have been OS VIII and OS IX.

Unlike OS 9 and earlier versions, OS X is based on a UniX implementation and so calling is OS EKS reminds us of how much it relies upon UNI-X.

BTW I also pronounce Linux as Lie-nucks and that's because it is Linus's Unix (not Linus's Uni-ten).

...Now are we supposed to take all of this seriously -- or even ANY of it.

Re: Never Argue Again About The Pronunciation Of “OS X” (Proof Included)

zhasper — Tue, 16 Jan 2007 17:40:57 -0000

Tim:

Darwin isn't another name for OS X; Darwin is a component of OS X.

Cf (of course) http://en.wikipedia.org/wik...

Re: Never Argue Again About The Pronunciation Of “OS X” (Proof Included)

M.Shum — Thu, 11 Jan 2007 23:01:20 -0000

Hi, I always say OS Ten....I never say OS Ex because it doesn't sound right...OS Ten sounds better also :D

Re: Never Argue Again About The Pronunciation Of “OS X” (Proof Included)

devnet — Thu, 11 Jan 2007 11:33:36 -0000

According to the dictionary, the Roman Numeral "X" is pronounced 'eks'

http://dictionary.reference...

I'd say anyone calling it OS Ex is just fine. If they want it to be 10...then should have put 10 on the cover. If not, they invite both pronunciations. You say pohtaytoe, I say pohtahtoe.

Re: Never Argue Again About The Pronunciation Of “OS X” (Proof Included)

Dennis — Thu, 11 Jan 2007 10:18:21 -0000

i think people who say Oh Es Ex are the people that haven't used any other Mac OS's except this one. Because they would see there was OS 8, OS 9, and then OS X. Then there thought process would be something like this:
"wait Ex doesn't come after 9, 10 does."
"Oh yeah! X is the roman numeral for 10."
"Ah, clever one apple. You almost had me"
Apple needs to come out with OS XI that way people will have no other choice then to say OS Eleven unless they really want to sound like an idiot and say Oh Es EX Eye

Re: Never Argue Again About The Pronunciation Of “OS X” (Proof Included)

Bill — Thu, 11 Jan 2007 08:57:08 -0000

I always thought it was pronounced as one word, "ossix", which implies its *NIX-ness. But that's the beauty of tech terms, their pronunciation is open. For example, I think people should adopt my pronunciation of PHP -- "fhup"

Re: Never Argue Again About The Pronunciation Of “OS X” (Proof Included)

bob — Thu, 11 Jan 2007 08:21:57 -0000

I personally say oh es ex, even though I knew from the start that the X stood for 10. Why? Because, I feel that oh es ex has a better flow to it when spoken. No other reason. And I'm ok with that.

Re: Never Argue Again About The Pronunciation Of “OS X” (Proof Included)

Daniel Miessler — Thu, 11 Jan 2007 06:49:12 -0000

Thank you, Zhasper. Excellent point! (I've updated the post with this info...)

Re: Never Argue Again About The Pronunciation Of “OS X” (Proof Included)

Daniel Miessler — Thu, 11 Jan 2007 06:48:43 -0000

Rick, I wasn't saying it was lazy for someone not to *know* how to say it. That's perfectly understandable. The laziness comes in when someone DOES know how to say it correctly, but chooses to say it their way because it's more convenient for them.

Is this a crime against humanity? No -- it's rather petty. But it does lead to what some would argue is a decline of the language. I'm on the fence, though -- I think it might just be natural progression of the language. But if I can help it I prefer to encourage the correct way -- at least while it's still correct.

One example of such an offense/evolution is the word nuclear. The word used to be, NEW CLEE ER. But if you hear it in common use it's usually, NEW CUE LER.

Anyway, I'm about to hit you up for some VOIP schooling. I'm about to do the Asterisk thing. Prepare to be harassed.

Re: Never Argue Again About The Pronunciation Of “OS X” (Proof Included)

Zhasper — Thu, 11 Jan 2007 02:21:13 -0000

Extra detail:

Go to Preferences, Speech, Text To Speech. Tick "Speak selected text when key is pressed", set the key to something obscure (I used command alt control shift s). Highlight the phrase "I am a fancy computer, and I run OS X", and hit your keystroke.

Re: Never Argue Again About The Pronunciation Of “OS X” (Proof Included)

Rick — Thu, 11 Jan 2007 00:48:23 -0000

Very enlightening. I have always said Ex as I thought they used the Roman Numeral to symbolize the change to the BSD (as indicated by Tim). I had never thought about looking up what Steve Jobs or anyone else at Apple might have called it. Note: I said that I never thought of it, not that I was to lazy... and the reason I never thought of it was I have never heard it matter. LOL!
So according to every scrape I can dig up on Steve Jobs, he to is a pronunciation fanatic about it being Oh Es Ten, so Daniel is right. Not that I think it should irk anyone. But, now knowing this I will have to change my habit so that I am technically correct.

Rick

Re: Never Argue Again About The Pronunciation Of “OS X” (Proof Included)

Zhasper — Wed, 10 Jan 2007 23:35:45 -0000

Those of you lucky enough to have a mac, have it run it's text-to-speech engine over the phrase "OS X". It will be pronounced as "Oh Ess Ten".

Re: Never Argue Again About The Pronunciation Of “OS X” (Proof Included)

brad — Wed, 10 Jan 2007 21:58:05 -0000

Thanks, Dan. I have a hard time explaining to people that I would prefer to hear "Oh Es Ten". Many of them refuse to believe that it is not actually "Ex". Same problem with the Linux argument and a few other choice words and phrases. By the way, I got bored and looked up the Malcom X thing...

In 1952, after his release from prison, Malcolm went to meet Elijah Muhammad in Chicago. It was soon after this that he changed his surname to "X". Malcolm explained the name by saying, The "X" is meant to symbolize the rejection of "slave-names" and the absence of an inherited African name to take its place. The "X" is also the brand that many slaves received on their upper arm. This rationale led many members of the Nation of Islam to change their surnames to X.

I would have had no idea. Thank you Wikipedia.