I believe I read how to correctly pronounce LaTeX as Lay-Teck (and why its important--to honor the creator of TeX's wishes+intentions, Donald Knuth) in Leslie Lamport's book on LaTeX--in the preface.
And when you think about it, pronouncing it as "Lay" does make sense "La" only means "the" in some romance Languages and the "L" and "A" don't stand for anything in particular either--LA isn't an acronym--and it has no "foreign language" meaning. Its not "The TeX"--TeX is "The TeX"--the lowest primal language itself, programmed in C. As for any relationship to Latex in paint or whatever; well, that's patently absurd. And its important for newbies to realize especially--before even using LaTeX--that LaTeX is a macro language and any newbie can program directly in TeX, create their own macro language--built on top of TeX too--and/or that they themselves can program in TeX and extend the language and embed it into LaTeX by creating libraries, style .sty files, etc. But I must say, of all the videos I've ever seen, I believe Dr. Kitchin has produced the most well-pronounced and clearly spoken ones ever--not just on Emacs, etc. Thanks again. Thanks Nick for the link: This reminds me of a strange and hilarious job interview I had long ago, when LaTeX wasn't fully well-known as a computerized typesetting packaged (used to publish more books on higher math than any other system). The interviewers asked what my "favorite computer software is"--well I smiled and said "Lay-Tecks"--this conjured up smirks, giggles and a wink or two--they thought I was into some other "favorite activities"--they obviously thought I was into latex clothing, etc. Not quickly realizing it, I went on: "Oh yes, I use it a lot, I use it as much as possible--I'm way into it; and, the whole free [soft-wear] community--I'd have to say I've been part of the community for many years." Obviously, people that don't know EXACTLY what you're talking about, can lead themselves to many very strange conclusions about you. So, such things can be very important indeed. On Tue, Dec 22, 2015 at 10:37 PM, Nick Dokos <ndo...@gmail.com> wrote: > John Kitchin <jkitc...@andrew.cmu.edu> writes: > > > Thanks! > > > > You might add your interpretation of the pronunciation here: > http://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/17502/what-is-the-correct-pronunciation-of-tex-and-latex > ;) > > > > John > > > > The vexing issue of how to pronounce "LaTeX" has reared its ugly head > before, e.g in this thread on the comp.text.tex group ca 1999: > > > https://groups.google.com/forum/#!searchin/comp.text.tex/Robin$20Fairbairns$20rubber/comp.text.tex/Ts9l6CPcjCk/g_89W2rJsPcJ > > with the entertaining subject "anyone have a source of all rubber > panties". I would recommend that you read the whole thread but in any > case don't give up until you read Robin Fairbairns's followup to his > (Robin's) suggestion that the OP should read the FAQ. > > How's that for a Christmas present? > -- > Nick > > >
