GUI: "Gooey" or "Gee-You-Ai"?

Wait, wait, wait... so if you were to say "I think Booker DeWitt is a really interesting character", you would pronounce the "ch" as an aspirated fricative, not a stop consonant? I.e., you would pronounce the "ch" in "character" like you would pronounce the "ch" in "chair", not like the "ch" in "chaos"?

Dude, you're a weirdo.

ka-rak-ta

@alexw00d: You're thinking of this from an English accent perspective. Americans can't say words with A in them properly remember?

Kar-ack-ter to us would be care-ick-ter to their crazy accent.

@gkhan: No, I would have figured people here were intelligent enough to understand that the CH in Character isn't pronounced like CH in chair. Sorry if you don't fit that description.

@canteu Sounds about right. :/

I'm a CS major and I think gooey sounds ridiculous.

This whole discussion started with TyCobb complaining that most people mispronounce Varchar (the SQL datatype) as /'vɒrtʃar/ (i.e. with the "ch" as an aspirated fricative, as in "charred", or "chair" or the "t" in "nature"), and not the (supposedly) correct way of pronounciation /'værkɛər/ (i.e. with "ch" as a stop consonant, as in "chaos", and the whole of "char" being pronounced as "care", as in the beginning of "character")! But you've been going around saying constantly that you don't pronounce "character" that way, you pronounce it "char-actor", and not as "care-actor" or "car-actor".

Do you see the confusion here? The first person argued that "char" should be pronounced with a stop consonant, and you said that he was wrong. Maybe you should read your comments before posting them.

I'm surprised anyone pronounces it gooey, more surprised that it's an even split in the polls.

I cannot even imagine an English person pronouncing the middle syllable as "ack". I only used an 'i' because I don't know how to type that upside down 'e' (ə) used in pronunciation guides. Am I mistaken as reading "Ack" as the first syllable in "accent" for example? I just can't get that to fit in the middle of character in any way that makes sense.

@scrawnto: Well here you go. I am an English person. Everyone I have ever met who is English says it like that. You cant do it because you say the char as care, because of your accent.

im a cs major and ive never heard someone say gooey, i suspect its a regional thing, like pop vs soda or bubbler vs water fountain

That's how you pronounce it!

For the hell of it, here's a StackOverflow question. I am mainly posting this for the 2nd Answer as it has The Chaos poem and the question does pertain to this thread.

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/560629/what-are-the-pronunciations-of-these-abbreviations

@tycobb: Not if you don't speak with an American accent.

I'm a cs major and i've never heard a teacher NOT say gooey. Weird.

Same here. Every professor I've had so far has said gooey.

I think computing-related abbreviations sound cool and futuristic when you spell them out, though, so Gee You Eye it shall remain!

I really don't understand how this can be so split and how so many people can be like "What? I've never heard it pronounced differently!"

Maybe it's a UK/US thing? Or maybe it actually just randomly depends from school to school. Anyway, "gooey" already is a word and it is frequently used to describe something sticky and of an often adhesive nature. So why would I want to say this word when talking about software design? That is so so silly.

Pick and choose. Whether you want to pronounce each letter of an abbreviation or pronounce it as a word, it's up to you.

I say G-U-I.

I also pronounce "ISO," both the image setting and the file format, as "EYE-SO."

My school has a pretty multicultural staff so I don't think it's something like UK vs US. I've heard a lot of guest lectures from a lot of people in different companies and every time they have always said gooey so I'm fairly certain it is the standard within the CS world.

Edit: even the stack overflow site agrees on gooey so i'd guarantee it is the standard. (Every cs major will learn to become best friends with that site and it usually has pretty trustworthy answers.)

I studied computer science for three years and only my high-school teacher rarely pronounced it as "gooey", and he eventually seemingly quit that habit. There's a guy in this thread who claims to be a CS major and he said he has never heard it pronounced like that.

I've met a few people who say "gooey", and immediately do everything I can to ensure I'll never see them again.

Studied Computer Science and heard it both ways from lecturers and students alike. "Gooey" sounds silly to me so I prefer saying UI "you eye".

Way more people say "gooey" than I am comfortable with accepting.

@starvinggamer: Haha the more you know indeed

Gooey, although before I heard people call it gooey I said G.U.I.

Most of the people I work with say "Gooey", and on that note I also say "Gooey".

Gooey.

Heads up: an acronym is something initialized which you say like a word, such as NASA. Otherwise it's called an initialism.

I've always said it G.U.I but everyone in my office says Gooey. Damn annoying but I guess I'll have to adapt!

Gooey always...

The creation of an acronym is to simply communication. You don't simplify G-U-I by saying each better and making it a multisyllabic construction. So 'Gooey' for two reasons, because an acronym 'should' be pronounced as a word, and 'gooey' because it is is less syllables.