this post was submitted on 12 Dec 2023
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Showerthoughts

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A "Showerthought" is a simple term used to describe the thoughts that pop into your head while you're doing everyday things like taking a shower, driving, or just daydreaming. The best ones are thoughts that many people can relate to and they find something funny or interesting in regular stuff.

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[–] [email protected] 54 points 11 months ago (5 children)

Except it doesn't in Finnish, where Linus Torvald is from. Linus and Linux is pronounced the same except for the final consonant.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 11 months ago (3 children)

So his name is really Lin-us and not Line-us?

[–] [email protected] 8 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I believe I saw a youtube clip of him saying his name and Linux that way, yes.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

Yes.

Source: I'm Norwegian but I used to know an irate IT finn named Linus. A separate irate IT finn named Linus, that is.

[–] [email protected] -5 points 11 months ago (2 children)

I think it would be Line-us and Line-ux.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 11 months ago (1 children)

No. The Li sound is pronounced the same as in Lift or Lint and not Line.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago

Interesting! Thanks for explaining. Mine was a guess at best.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 11 months ago

Finnish definitely does not use that pronunciation

[–] [email protected] 16 points 11 months ago (2 children)

I'm Italian and I pronounce both "i"s in the same way. Why is English so strange?

[–] [email protected] 8 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

In this particular instance, the Great Vowel Shift is to blame. What caused that is up for debate.

In general, English is so strange because it's a mongrel language, incorporating words from a variety of other different languages.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 11 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 11 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Hey, we pronounce both the same, too. Sorry English, that's on you and you alone.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Uh huh

And how would you pronounce it compared to a German?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago

The I as in "free", but shorter (not drawn out) and the u as in "urban", maybe? It's hard to find English words where they make the french U sound, but it's pronounced the same pretty much all the time.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago

"Hello, this is Linus Torvalds and I pronounce 'Linux' as 'Linux'."

So yeah, he pronounces 'Linus' like 'LEE-noose', and 'Linux' like 'LEE-nooks'. (Roughly, anyway. It should get the point across for most English speakers, I'm not at a computer to do a more-correct IPA transcription right now.)

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago

Correction: Even though he's Finnish, his primary language is Swedish