Initially, I pronounced it /ɡɹɔːf/ <http://ipa-reader.xyz/?text=%C9%A1%C9%B9%C9%94%CB%90f>. Recently, I've begun pronouncing it /ˈdʒiːɹɒf/ <http://ipa-reader.xyz/?text=%C9%A1%C9%B9%C9%94%CB%90f>, though I sometimes still mentally read it as the former.
IMHO, I think we should put our foot down and standardise Groff's pronunciation in a man page somewhere. I'm willing to bet plenty of users mispronounce "troff" as /tɹɒf/ <http://ipa-reader.xyz/?text=t%C9%B9%C9%92f> (I used to be guilty of this myself). I'd further argue that the GNU roff project has indulged some puns that > make the "jee-roff" pronunciation an unstable equilibrium that we might > expect to fail. > The prefix these tools use isn't *"g-"*, but *"gro-"*; i.e., pronouncing grops *"jee-rops"* only makes sense if there was a tool named "rops". The surname "Groff", with which some unknown quantity of users will be > familiar before they encounter our software, long predates computerized > typesetting. > "Troff" is also a surname, albeit an uncommon one (see https://unwsp.edu/bio/emma-troff/). Ergo, this argument doesn't have much weight. On Wed, 27 Oct 2021 at 17:04, G. Branden Robinson < g.branden.robin...@gmail.com> wrote: > [post-quotation word count: 565] > > At 2021-10-26T23:44:15-0400, Peter Schaffter wrote: > > On Tue, Oct 26, 2021, Douglas McIlroy wrote: > > > > Is there a correct pronunciation of groff? > > > > > > Groff's forebears were christened en-roff and tee-roff, so an > > > old-timer from Bell Labs instinctively reads groff as a disyllable. > > > Could groff's originator, James Clark, have read it otherwise? > > > > So is it worth giving the established pronunciation in the videos' > > comments, or should language be left to do its thing and evolve? > > I'm still the new guy here in a lot of ways, and I've found my own usage > shifting erratically between the two. When I first showed up I mentally > pronounced it "groff" (the monosyllable) just like the philistines with > their YouTube channels, and I still do sometimes, but when speaking > aloud to others about this thing that I work on, I sometimes find myself > deferring to the "accepted" pronunciation. > > The surname "Groff", with which some unknown quantity of users will be > familiar before they encounter our software, long predates computerized > typesetting. To the misfortune of our Web search efforts, it is borne > by a couple of actors, at least one of whom is pretty famous, at least > among some demographic groups (say, his own age or younger). > > I'd further argue that the GNU roff project has indulged some puns that > make the "jee-roff" pronunciation an unstable equilibrium that we might > expect to fail. We have groff-related tools, grog and the output > drivers, all of which[1] _seem_ to pull in the other direction. > > "Grotty" and "grog" are (at least) semi-standard English words, the > latter a term for rotgut whiskey (or a ration of rum allocated to scurvy > tars), and they thereby encourage a similar morphological approach to > "groff". > > Do the old-timers instinctively pronounce grops(1) "jee-roe-pee-ess"? > > I pronounce the "gro-" prefix on all of our output drivers as "grow", > and except for "grotty", spell out the remaining letters since they're > all initialisms anyway. > > My guess is that the momentum will prove to be away from the disyllable. > Our attempts to resist this will meet a further difficulty: our attempts > at issuing corrections in writing meet with the misfortune that both of > the two most common ways of doing so stumble over ambiguous readings in > English, just as the interjection "Geez!" (or "Jeez!") does.[2] When we > say "gee-roff", does the first syllable more closely resemble "ghee" > (that one might cook Indian food with) or the unit of acceleration > experienced in aerobatic maneuvers? When we say "jee-roff", we may > think ourselves on firmer ground, but for every jeering, jersey-clad, > jejune jellybean-jerker in the world, there's a person coming from a > background in the French, German, or Spanish languages, familiar with > English's aggressive adoption of loan words, who may be left wondering > if we're suggesting "zhee-roff" or "yee-roff" instead. > > Consequently, for all of my inclinations as a prescriptivist, I find > myself leaving my watermarked pad in its locked drawer in this case. > > Let the YouTubers mispronounce, if that is in fact what they're doing. > I appreciate the publicity they're giving our little project, and if in > so doing they encourage more people to read our documentation and gain a > better command of the practical _usage_ of groff, I confess I'll be > pleased. > > Regards, > Branden > > [1] except for "gxditview", which doesn't encourage spoken pronunciation > even slightly > [2] I use the latter because it's a minced oath for "Jesus Christ": in > popular (and characteristically hazy) notions of soteriology, even > such mincing brings one nonzero ignominy in the sight of the divine > Judge, Whose anger can evidently be mollified in proportion to one's > efforts at obfuscation, despite His perfect knowledge of one's > innermost heart. Thus the popularity of the absurd rendering > starting with a "g", which itself begins a great many _other_ minced > oaths for the Name. As Bart Simpson said, "well, you're damned if > you do, and you're damned if you don't". >
