LyX wiki | FAQ / Pronunciation

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And how are those weird names pronounced?

Table of contents

TeX
LaTeX
LyX

§ TeX

The FAQ of the TeX User Group (TUG) says:

The 'X' is "really" the Greek letter Chi, and is pronounced by English-speakers either a bit like the 'ch' in the Scots word 'loch' ([x] in the IPA) or like 'k'. It definitely is not pronounced 'ks' (the Greek letter with that sound doesn't look remotely like the Latin alphabet 'X').

§ LaTeX

The FAQ of the TeX User Group (TUG) says:

Lamport never recommended how one should pronounce LaTeX, but a lot of people pronounce it 'Lay TeX', 'Lay Tech' or perhaps 'Lah TeX' (with TeX pronounced as the program itself; see the rules for TeX). It is definitely not to be pronounced in the same way as the rubber-tree gum.
The 'epsilon' in 'LaTeX2e' is supposed to be suggestive of a small improvement over the old LaTeX 2.09. Nevertheless, most people pronounce the name as 'LaTeX-two-ee'.

§ LyX

As you can see in this thread and this one, there's no real consensus. Proposals from the developers include:

[liks] to rhyme with "Weetabix" (John)
"try to make the 'eeeee' sound a bit more like 'yyyyy' [...] You english speaking cretins are not able to hear the difference between 'LyX' and 'Licks'" (Lars).
"Lüks with short ü (that is in IPA). I've heard "Liks" with short "i", too." (André)

Proposals from users include:

Since it's written in C++, home of the dangling memory pointer, maybe "leaks"? (Paul)

Some consensus is:

The 'X' is (not) pronounced as a Chi as in TeX and LaTeX.
It's not pronounced "Throatwobbler Mangrove".

The "official truth", according to the Wikipedia:

LyX was original going to be named Lyrix; so
most likely it should be pronounced like the English word "licks".

Conclusion:

"Find something you are comfortable with and use that." (Lars)

Threads where this was discussed:

FAQ

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