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
- Title (website): “nginx”. Publisher: NGINX. Accessed: 2025-02-26T23:25Z. URI: https://nginx.org/en/.
- §“nginx”. ¶1.
TIL some people pronounced it n-jinx
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.
I laughed out loud when I first learned that imgur is supposed to be pronounced as "imager’… well you fuckin chose the wrong combination of letters for that didn’t ya
1000% I say gif too, like gift. If you wanted it pronounced like “jiff” then you should have spelled it with a J.
I flew from Jermany to Tanzania and saw some jeriatric jiraffes.
I say it “Jif” because:
- That’s what the format’s creator named it.
- It’s weird, but “soft G” is a thing and acronyms and the only “rule” for pronouncing acronyms is “it’s easy to say”.
- It annoys people that are way too invested in it. Sure, it’s immature – but it’s low stakes and not particularly “shitty”. I enjoy it and you only YOLO once.
Or with a Đ.
Choosy moms choose Dzhif.
jif was copyrighted. gif was literally named after the peanut butter. it came with a jingle “choosy developers choose gif”. How many different forms of proof do you need.
Am I missing something? I’ve always pronounced it “imager”. How else would you pronounce it?
as it’s spelled: im gur.
It’s one thing to name it imgr, but putting a fucking u after the g makes it a hard g in literally every instance. the letter u is the reason the g is pronounced as a hard g in words that otherwise wouldn’t need a u: fragile / guile, digest / guest, etc.
as it’s spelled: im gur.
“I’m gur”?
Tony… Is that you?
it’s spelled img - ur, as in
imgor the shortening ofimagein every context. You can’t shortenimageany other way.it’s spelled img - ur
no, it’s spelled imgur. I know what img stands for which is why I said it would be one thing to call it imgr. the u doesn’t make sense and it hardens the g. it’s funny that you talk about how it’s customary that img stands for image but you act like ‘ur’ is also a thing by itself.
well it is, just not in that way. if your img-ur breakup made any sense for pronouncing img as if it’s independent then why not consider what ur stands for? it’s a shortening of your or you’re. so why not pronounce it image your? because it’s bullshit and the spelling is ridiculous.
And I will always pronounce SQL as “squeal”
I say PSQL as Pee Sequel
I say FAQ as fuck you.
Some people pronounce it like “fack”, and the official way to pronounce GameFAQs is “game facks”
Yes, I have hear this much
My brain first interpreted SQL as ‘squirrel’ and that now refuses to relinquish its claim as default pronunciation in my mind.
genius
I still say it this way in my head…
That’s great actually!
My lead dev used to pronounce it njinx and I always needed some time to realize what he’s talking about.
And JSON is pronounced “javascripton“
Oh my god it’s Javascripton Bourne!
Occasionally i feel myself longing back to the good ol’ JSOFF times.
It’s a real book 💀
It’s fantastic too!
That is the lamest decepticon transformer I’ve ever heard of
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.
Jason = jay-sun
JSON = jay-sawnNo, it’s pronounced Jason. Douglas Crockford was just too laissez-faire to correct anyone on it probably because he didn’t give a fuck.
If you really just say Jason instead of jaysawn/J-sohn you’re nuts and probably drive everyone crazy with that
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.
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
You seem in irrational need for validation of your pronunciation despite clear justification against it. Cool ad populum. Fly that insecurity flag high.
They’re joking. js doesn’t even officially stand for JavaScript due to Oracle’s IP claim over the JavaScript name.
Oracle probably makes more money from the dmca than their actual products tbh.
Oracle actually making products and services is only their side hustle
And even more annoying, JavaScript is not correctly uppercased for common styles
GIF like Geoffrey the giraffe, if you get my gist. Always has been.
I always thought the G stood for graphics, but now I know it stands for giraffics.
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.
I use both pronunciations, but the only argument I’ve ever believed for the proper one is that the creator pronounced it “jif”
Yeah, but they’re wrong, so it’s hard G
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.
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.
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.
Bah, I was there. .jif was barely used and came 5 years after. They should have used a different name!
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.
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)
JPEG = “jay-feg”
Jrafics.
JavaScript is actually pronounced with a g.
Gagascript. One is soft, one is hard.
Gangaacrupt?
I think software name pronunciation discussions are so hilariously absurd that I sometimes purposefully vocalise nginx as “Nuhh Ginks” just to put a hat on it
En Guh Inks
I pronounce k8s as k-eights sometimes on purpose to gauge the reactions
Wait do you mean “kates” or “Kay-Eights”? I think either makes sense and I wouldn’t raise an eyebrow
If you said it like “Kuhh-Eights” I would probably laugh
And GIF is pronounced GIF
PNG is pronounced “PING!”
The fuck?!
Lo and behold,
P[i]NG
Pi
P- iNG
CMYK is pronounced smück.
Schmuck.
No no, we won’t be having any of that. It’s not GIF it’s GIF!
careful there buddy
They can pry my /ɡɪf/ from my cold dead hands.
/dʒɪf/ heretics can burn
Wait till you find out about quay
I’ve never heard it pronounced any other way than “engine x”.
I’ve never heard it pronounced. Which is why I also thought it was “n-jinx”
When I first encountered it, it was by hearing it. It took longer than it probably should have to recognize that when people talked about “engine x”, they meant “in-jinks”
I heard it spoken first as well, but I ended up seeing it in text form not long after. I think it would have been more confusing if that hadn’t been the era of internet companies thinking they were clever if they dropped a letter (usually a vowel).
nyuh-inks
I started using it around 2006, and even back then it listed the pronunciation on the site.
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…
It’ll forever be F-stab in my head
I was a non violent youth when I first saw an fstab, perhaps that got me thinking “F S tab”
Whereas fsck, short for “file system check”, should be pronounced “fisk” when someone in a suit is around, otherwise it’s “fuck”.
It’s ef sock in my head
it kinda ends up as “fsuck” for me, which is apt-get when it doesn’t magically fix all my filesystem issues
f*ck. You can even occasionally get away with spelling it like this
f-s-tab is feeble. Unsatisfactory. Bureaucratic.
f-stab is jocose. Nonchalant. Sharp.
Is that pronounced as gokoze?
“F-stab” is just more fun to say.
With the issues i had in the past with fstab, the desire to stab someone was certainly provoked.
Insert dank Winnie the Pooh meme here for F-STAB
That’s… Unfortunate.
N-jinks is silly, f-stab is cool.
I’ve been pronouncing it N-gin-X, which is probably close enough once slurred together
I always called it “in-gen-ix”, which doesn’t even make sense now that I think about it.
Unless you’re from New Zealand
Uhn-jun-uhks in NZ TYVM.
En-eh hinks (with heavy Spanish accent)
I’ve always pronounced it “not-Apache”
Yeah, the j-sawn pronunciation is truly inexplicable. Who pronounces S-O-N “sawn”?
I believe the Greeks do where the name originates from.
I’m hearing ya-sun-ahs. That U is halfway between uh and oo, like the U in “put”.
As always, first impressions count. There is no way I’m starting to call it engine x now, except for fun.
I’ve done a semi-exception in the case of Xitter. I like this new name Elon chose because it brings the possiblity of playful sounds. Same goes to Xitler.
In Chinese, “X” makes a “sh” sound.
Take from that what you will.
That’s the point…
Not everyone knows that though.
