neutral American English pronunciation of "Math.sin"

[Stefan Ram]

What is the neutral American English pronunciation used by
programmers, when they say »Math.sin«?

I assume that I already know the sequence of consonants used
while saying this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bilabial_nasal
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voiceless_dental_fricative
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voiceless_alveolar_fricative
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alveolar_nasal

But which are the vowels used for »a« and »i«?

Is »sin« pronounced like »sine«?

Is »sin«, when meaning »sine«, pronounced like »sin« (in the
sens of »A violation of a moral or religious law«)?

Is »Math« pronounced like the start of »mathematics«?

Is »Math« pronounced in the same way as »path« (except
for the initial consonant)?

Is the ».« converted to a word and then also pronounced,
if so, to which word?

TIA

 

[Arved Sandstrom]

What is the neutral American English pronunciation used by
programmers, when they say »Math.sin«?

I assume that I already know the sequence of consonants used
while saying this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bilabial_nasal
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voiceless_dental_fricative
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voiceless_alveolar_fricative
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alveolar_nasal

But which are the vowels used for »a« and »i«?

Is »sin« pronounced like »sine«?

Is »sin«, when meaning »sine«, pronounced like »sin« (in the
sens of »A violation of a moral or religious law«)?

Is »Math« pronounced like the start of »mathematics«?

Is »Math« pronounced in the same way as »path« (except
for the initial consonant)?

Is the ».« converted to a word and then also pronounced,
if so, to which word?

TIA

I've never heard anyone - math-type, engineer, physicist, programmer -
ever say anything other than "sine" for "sin".

As for pronouncing "math", where I'm from we pronounce "path" and the
start of "mathematics" the same way. There's a difference somewhere?

AHS

 

[BGB / cr88192]

/{/ as in "cat" and "ran".
/I/ as in "hit" and "city".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Near-open_front_unrounded_vowel
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Near-close_near-front_unrounded_vowel

I've never heard anyone - math-type, engineer, physicist, programmer -
ever say anything other than "sine" for "sin".

"sine" is the meaning, but "sin" is the way one says those letters, so it
depends on the reader.

it is like seening "ln" and saying "natural log" or, effectively, "elen"
("/ElEn/" or "/ElUn/").
or, "cos" as "cosine" or as "/kos/".

usually, for saying stuff, it is not meaningful to map to semantics prior to
mapping to words.

"Math.sin" => "math dot sin" (or "math point sin", ...).

"Math.sin();" => "math dot sin open-paren close-paren semicolon".
....

"*s++" => "random /Es/ plus plus" or "star /Es/ plus plus".
....

As for pronouncing "math", where I'm from we pronounce "path" and the
start of "mathematics" the same way. There's a difference somewhere?

yep, they are pronounced the same...

"/m{T/" and "/m{TEm{tIks/" (although I guess "/m{DEm{tIks/", ... would also
work, although /T/ and /D/ are generally not distinguished in English).

 

[Arved Sandstrom]

/{/ as in "cat" and "ran".
/I/ as in "hit" and "city".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Near-open_front_unrounded_vowel
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Near-close_near-front_unrounded_vowel



"sine" is the meaning, but "sin" is the way one says those letters, so it
depends on the reader.

it is like seening "ln" and saying "natural log" or, effectively, "elen"
("/ElEn/" or "/ElUn/").
or, "cos" as "cosine" or as "/kos/".

usually, for saying stuff, it is not meaningful to map to semantics prior to
mapping to words.

[ SNIP ]

Come to think of it, "ln" is another good one - I've almost always heard
it pronounced "lon" or "lawn". If someone says "el en" then they very
likely have no idea what it means.

For "cos" not many folks I know, including myself, have the patience to
always say "cosine", but "koss" doesn't sound quite right either, so we
end up with "kose". But I guess some folks say "koss"; I won't say it's odd.

AHS

 

[BGB / cr88192]

Southern English: "path" ==> parth/paath (long-A)

Northern English: "path" ==> path (short-A)

"mathematics" always has a short-A

For a look at the intricacies of English pronunciation google "ghoti",
pronounced 'fish'.

except that an actual English speaker will see it and see it as "goaty"...

just because somone somewhere can claim that this has a particular
pronunciation, if actual people will not pronounce it that way upon seeing
it, then it is not a particularly valid example of the pronunciation rules.


as I see it, pronunciation is essentially a dictionary-lookup scheme
anyways, and so edge cases don't necessarily constitute valid general rules.

the words essentially have 2 semi-unrelated representations:
their photetic representation, or the valid lists of phones which could be
recognized as a particular word;
their graphical representation, which is can be regarded as a glyph
essentially independent of the way it is said (at best, it provides a hint
as to the phonetic form, but it is not an exact mapping).

really, one can see that spelling is not too much unlike hanzi / kanji,
where the lithographic form is fixed, but some fluidity is allowed as to
which sounds it is associated, which may be based on dialect / language,
context, and other factors, such as with "polish" (the polish was shiny) and
"Polish" (the furniture was Polish), ...

so, really, reading/writing English, and speaking English, could be validly
regarded as different activities depending on different skill-sets (much
like how one needs no real knowledge of Mandarin to understand the meaning
of hanzi...).


or such...

 

[Joshua Cranmer]

Come to think of it, "ln" is another good one - I've almost always heard
it pronounced "lon" or "lawn". If someone says "el en" then they very
likely have no idea what it means.

I've always pronounced it "lin" (as in "linen"), which frequently
results in me going back and having to say natural log.

 

[BGB / cr88192]

/{/ as in "cat" and "ran".
/I/ as in "hit" and "city".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Near-open_front_unrounded_vowel
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Near-close_near-front_unrounded_vowel



"sine" is the meaning, but "sin" is the way one says those letters, so it
depends on the reader.

it is like seening "ln" and saying "natural log" or, effectively, "elen"
("/ElEn/" or "/ElUn/").
or, "cos" as "cosine" or as "/kos/".

usually, for saying stuff, it is not meaningful to map to semantics prior
to mapping to words.

[ SNIP ]

Come to think of it, "ln" is another good one - I've almost always heard
it pronounced "lon" or "lawn". If someone says "el en" then they very
likely have no idea what it means.

I don't think it follows.
it is common practice to say things like this as the letters that make them
up:
"ls" => "ElEs"
"rd" => "Ardi"
"mk" => "EmkeI"
....

"ln" would just follow in this line.

For "cos" not many folks I know, including myself, have the patience to
always say "cosine", but "koss" doesn't sound quite right either, so we
end up with "kose". But I guess some folks say "koss"; I won't say it's
odd.

I wrote /kos/, which would use the 'o' sound from "no" or "close" (so, more
like your "kose", although to me this word would be more like /koz/ or
/koUz/).

"koss" would have been more likely written as /kaz/, which, yes, would be an
odd way to say it.

I am going by SAMPA notation here (ASCII mapping of IPA).

 

[BGB / cr88192]

I've always pronounced it "lin" (as in "linen"), which frequently results
in me going back and having to say natural log.

people have accused me for seeing the letter 'mu' and saying it as /mu/
(rather than /mjus/), but to me the letter is named mu so it is said mu (or
"moo").

likewise goes for quaternion as /kwAt3'niAn/, as opposed to the other
demanding that it was something like /kwVtIrniVn/ or similar...


but, as I see it, there is too much room for variation to worry about
specifics...

if someone is generally understandable, that is good enough, getting fussy
is more for trying to pull off a natural-sounding TTS engine or whatever...

 

[Martin Gregorie]

except that an actual English speaker will see it and see it as
"goaty"...

....with an Indian accent by analogy with "dhoti".

Its not really a fair example since it was concocted specifically to
highlight inconsistencies between the way English is written and spoken.

 

[Lew]

Come to think of it, "ln" is another good one - I've almost always heard
it pronounced "lon" or "lawn". If someone says "el en" then they very
likely have no idea what it means.

For "cos" not many folks I know, including myself, have the patience to
always say "cosine", but "koss" doesn't sound quite right either, so we
end up with "kose". But I guess some folks say "koss"; I won't say it's
odd.

There is no standard. Just like some pronounce the type "char" as in the verb
"to char" and others as the first syllable in "character". (I'm in the latter
camp.)

FWIW, I say "math sin" to rhyme with "path pin", "lin", "koss". I don't
pronounce the punctuation; that's just silly.

 

[Tom Anderson]

There is no standard. Just like some pronounce the type "char" as in the
verb "to char" and others as the first syllable in "character". (I'm in the
latter camp.)

Hang on, including the r or not?

tom

 

[Tom Anderson]

I don't think it follows.
it is common practice to say things like this as the letters that make them
up:
"ls" => "ElEs"
"rd" => "Ardi"
"mk" => "EmkeI"
...

"ln" would just follow in this line.

Hmm. For me "lun" (although the vowel is a schwa, rather than a u) is the
natural logarithm function, and "ell en" is the command that makes links
in the filesystem. Why? Dunno.

While ls is "ell ess", but anything starting mk is "Mc", like it was
Scottish; McDurr makes directories, MkNodd makes nodes, MkPheepho makes
named pipes, etc.

I wrote /kos/, which would use the 'o' sound from "no" or "close" (so, more
like your "kose", although to me this word would be more like /koz/ or
/koUz/).

For me, sin is pronounced as the word, tan is pronounced as the word, and
cos is pronounced as my local dialect's form of 'because'. I've never had
to pronounce the hyperbolic forms.

Mind you, this is all British english, and so not what Stefan was asking
about.

tom

 

[Lew]

For me, sin is pronounced as the word, tan is pronounced as the word,
and cos is pronounced as my local dialect's form of 'because'. I've
never had to pronounce the hyperbolic forms.

I was taught in an algebra class of some kind in the U.S. to say

function pronunciation
-------- -------------
sinh sinch (sounds like "cinch")
cosh cosh (like "cosh" meaning "bludgeon")
tanh tanch (rhymes with "ranch")

<http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/sinh>
<http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/cosh>
<http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/tanh>

 

[Lew]

Hang on, including the r or not?

Varies with speaker's dialect.

 

[BGB / cr88192]

Varies with speaker's dialect.

yep, along with "the", the "-ing" suffix, ...

as for me:
r is pronounced (including in final position);
"the" is pronounced like /DV/ (not /Di/ or /da/ as some others do);
"-ing" is /iN/ (like in "sing" or "king"), whereas many others seem to use
/In/ or /En/.
....


for example, people from more eastern-US places often drop the final 'r'
sound (like in RP and similar);
similarly, people from places like California, ... seem to mess up '-ing'
(often using '/En/' instead, saying "rock'en" rather than "rock'king").

(actually, I suspect people from there seem to have a problem with saying
the "ng" sound in general, and so it is often shifted to "n"...).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Velar_nasal


where I am currently at (AZ), I have noted a lot of minor things, but
haven't really classified them all.

....

 

[Tom Anderson]

Varies with speaker's dialect.

But in your case specifically?

Without the r, it's something like 'ka', like a cat without a t, which is
perfectly pronouncable. But with the r, it's something like 'karr', and
your tongue ends up halfway back in your mouth, poised to do something
else, but with nothing else to do. It feels really weird. Are there any
words in english ending in a short vowel followed by an r, where the r is
really pronounced? Mostly it vanishes as in 'Alexander', 'zither', etc,
right?

Depending, i suppose, on dialect. I think that r would be vocalised in
west country British english.

tom

--
For the first few years I ate lunch with he mathematicians. I soon found
that they were more interested in fun and games than in serious work,
so I shifted to eating with the physics table. There I stayed for a
number of years until the Nobel Prize, promotions, and offers from
other companies, removed most of the interesting people. So I shifted
to the corresponding chemistry table where I had a friend. At first I
asked what were the important problems in chemistry, then what important
problems they were working on, or problems that might lead to important
results. One day I asked, "if what they were working on was not important,
and was not likely to lead to important things, they why were they working
on them?" After that I had to eat with the engineers! -- R. W. Hamming

 

[Stefan Ram]

"-ing" is /iN/ (like in "sing" or "king"), whereas many others seem to use
/In/ or /En/.
...
for example, people from more eastern-US places often drop the final 'r'
sound (like in RP and similar);
similarly, people from places like California, ... seem to mess up '-ing'
(often using '/En/' instead, saying "rock'en" rather than "rock'king").

This is also a feature of the

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yat_dialect

»the substitution of (...) -in, -en (...) for (...) -ing (...)«

. Loss of

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhoticization

is also reported for this dialect in some cases there.

I pronounce »char« as

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voiceless_velar_plosive
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_back_unrounded_vowel
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R-colored_vowel

.

 

[Roedy Green]

What is the neutral American English pronunciation used by
programmers, when they say »Math.sin«?

Math dot sine

Math in North America is the usual abbreviation for mathematics.

Since I interact only via the Internet, nobody knows or cares how I
pronounce this.
--
Roedy Green Canadian Mind Products
http://mindprod.com

Responsible Development is the style of development I aspire to now. It can be summarized by answering the question, “How would I develop if it were my money?” I’m amazed how many theoretical arguments evaporate when faced with this question.
~ Kent Beck (born: 1961 age: 49) , evangelist for extreme programming.

 

[BGB / cr88192]

But in your case specifically?

Without the r, it's something like 'ka', like a cat without a t, which is
perfectly pronouncable. But with the r, it's something like 'karr', and
your tongue ends up halfway back in your mouth, poised to do something
else, but with nothing else to do. It feels really weird. Are there any
words in english ending in a short vowel followed by an r, where the r is
really pronounced? Mostly it vanishes as in 'Alexander', 'zither', etc,
right?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhotic_and_non-rhotic_accents


there are many words which end in r, and yes, the r is pronounced.

"Alexander" would be /{lEkz{nd@`r/ (alek zan durr).


but, yes, it is the case even if it is difficult to pronounce for some
non-native speakers.
but, hell, native English speakers have troubles with other languages as
well, such as using 'ng' in much of anywhere other than at the end of a
word, ...

ie:
"ngyu" (/Nju/) => "nyu" (/nju/);
"tsu" => "su";
....

"tsukasa" -> /sukAsA/

Depending, i suppose, on dialect. I think that r would be vocalised in
west country British english.

yep.

 

[Roedy Green]

as I see it, pronunciation is essentially a dictionary-lookup scheme
anyways, and so edge cases don't necessarily constitute valid general rules.

I watch the language evolving with pronunciations drifting ever
further from the phonetics.

I find this distressing. examples:

axe-i-denl instead of accidental.
ay-yend, two syllables, instead of and.
bawdle instead of bottle.
air-ee-ahhhs´ instead of air´-ee-as for areas and other valley girl
isms — extending a vowel and trailing off the pitch part way through,
especially grown women affecting the accent, and even worse
professional announcers pretending to be ditzy preteens. My ears bleed
when I hear that affectation.
kewpon instead of koopon for coupon.
koent instead of coudint for couldn’t.
dennis instead of dentist.
dint instead of didn’t.
do-rable instead of dyurable for durable.
Febuary instead of February. Even professional announcers like Jim
Lehrer blow this one.
femily instead of family.
feud instead of food.
fordy instead of forty.
git instead of get.
heighth instead of height.
ar-je like the French je, instead of hours.
eye´-rack instead of ee-rack´ for Iraq.
key-yids instead of kids.
lil instead of little.
lawndrymat instead of lawndro-mat for laundromat.
lookin instead of looking, and all ing words.
lugzury instead of lucksury for luxury.
mah instead of my.
new´-kew-lur instead of new´-klee-are for nuclear. Dinosaur
enviro-cretins George W. Bush and ex-Alberta Premier Ralph Klein share
this mispronunciation.
say-ull instead of sail for sale.
senner instead of senter for centre.
ser-yus-ly instead of ser-i-ous-ly.
ta instead of too for to.
stow-ah instead of store.
toadally instead of totally.
chooseday instead of tiuseday for Tuesday
wadder instead of water.
samwige instead of sandwich.
wool instead of we’ll
wuhnt instead of wouldn’t.
yers instead of yores for yours.
People who pronounce toon and tune the same way, or food and feud the
same way.
--
Roedy Green Canadian Mind Products
http://mindprod.com

Responsible Development is the style of development I aspire to now. It can be summarized by answering the question, “How would I develop if it were my money?” I’m amazed how many theoretical arguments evaporate when faced with this question.
~ Kent Beck (born: 1961 age: 49) , evangelist for extreme programming.