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how do you pronounce 'tuple'?

Yes, silly question, but it keeps me up at night. :)

I know it comes from the suffix -tuple, which makes me think it's
pronounced as 'toople', but I've seen (at m-w.com) that the first
pronunciation option is 'tuhple', so I wasn't sure. Maybe it's both, but
which is most prevalent?

Thanks! Now time to go back to reading the chapter on tuples...
Feb 13 '06 #1
62 20179
John Salerno wrote:
Yes, silly question, but it keeps me up at night. :)
Silly you!
I know it comes from the suffix -tuple, which makes me think it's
pronounced as 'toople', but I've seen (at m-w.com) that the first
pronunciation option is 'tuhple', so I wasn't sure. Maybe it's both, but
which is most prevalent?
No suffix involved, tuples have a respectable mathematical history going
back centuries.
Thanks! Now time to go back to reading the chapter on tuples...


"Tyoople", "toople" or "tupple" depending on who you are, where you grew
up and who you are speaking to. As with so many Usenet questions,
there's no right answer, only 314 wrong ones :-)

I teach on both sides of the Atlantic, and have learned to draw a mental
breath before trying to pronounce the word "router". Americans find the
British pronunciation ("rooter") hilarious, despite the fact they tell
me I drive on "Root 66" to get to DC. The Brits are politer, and only
snigger behind my back when I pronounce it as Americans do, to rhyme
with "outer".

except-that-there's-no-"t"-in-American-ly y'rs - steve
--
Steve Holden +44 150 684 7255 +1 800 494 3119
Holden Web LLC www.holdenweb.com
PyCon TX 2006 www.python.org/pycon/

Feb 13 '06 #2
On 2006-02-13, John Salerno <jo******@NOSPA Mgmail.com> wrote:
I know it comes from the suffix -tuple, which makes me think
it's pronounced as 'toople', but I've seen (at m-w.com) that
the first pronunciation option is 'tuhple', so I wasn't sure.
Maybe it's both, but which is most prevalent?


In my expereince, the latter. I don't think I've ever heard
the other pronounciation.

--
Grant Edwards grante Yow! Isn't this my STOP?!
at
visi.com
Feb 13 '06 #3
John Salerno wrote:
Yes, silly question, but it keeps me up at night. :)

I know it comes from the suffix -tuple, which makes me think it's
pronounced as 'toople', but I've seen (at m-w.com) that the first
pronunciation option is 'tuhple', so I wasn't sure. Maybe it's both, but
which is most prevalent?

Thanks! Now time to go back to reading the chapter on tuples...


I'm not sure, but I think it is pronounced "ménage à trois".

M.

;-)
Feb 13 '06 #4
John Salerno wrote:
Yes, silly question, but it keeps me up at night. :)

I know it comes from the suffix -tuple, which makes me think it's
pronounced as 'toople', but I've seen (at m-w.com) that the first
pronunciation option is 'tuhple', so I wasn't sure. Maybe it's both, but
which is most prevalent?

Thanks! Now time to go back to reading the chapter on tuples...


I believe both is right. Those who come from a pure mathematics
background are more likely to pronounce it _toople_. Those who have
encountered it in the wild are more likely to pronounce it _tuhple_. I
had enough of an understanding of mathematics to recognize where it came
from when I encountered it in Python, but I pronounce it the latter way.

Even in mathematics, a tuple, or formally an n-tuple, makes more sense
to me pronounced the latter if you list out the various pronounciations
for large n, seems me the _uhs_ outweigh the _oos_. (There's quadruple
on one side, but then quintuple, sextuple, septuple, heptuple, octuple,
etc., etc., etc.)

--
Erik Max Francis && ma*@alcyone.com && http://www.alcyone.com/max/
San Jose, CA, USA && 37 20 N 121 53 W && AIM erikmaxfrancis
We are victims of our circumstance.
-- Sade Adu
Feb 13 '06 #5
Grant Edwards wrote:
On 2006-02-13, John Salerno <jo******@NOSPA Mgmail.com> wrote:
I know it comes from the suffix -tuple, which makes me think
it's pronounced as 'toople', but I've seen (at m-w.com) that
the first pronunciation option is 'tuhple', so I wasn't sure.
Maybe it's both, but which is most prevalent?


In my expereince, the latter. I don't think I've ever heard
the other pronounciation.


I used to pronounce it toople. But the people that taught me Python
found it both comical and confusing. At first they thought I meant a 2
element tuple. So they wondered if a 3 element tuple was a threeple,
etc. After much harrassing, I changed my wayward ways and pronounced
it tuhple to fit in with the cool Python guys. ;-)

Then we went to hear Guido speak about Python 2.2 at a ZPUG meeting in
Washington, DC. When he said toople I almost fell out of my chair
laughing, particularly because the people who taught me to say it the
"right" way were with me. When I looked over, they just hung their
head in shame.

I work with Guido now and I'm conflicted. I'm still conditioned to say
tuhple. Whenever he says toople, I just get a smile on my face. I
think most of the PythonLabs guys pronounce it toople.

n

Feb 13 '06 #6
John Salerno wrote:
I know it comes from the suffix -tuple, which makes me think it's
pronounced as 'toople', but I've seen (at m-w.com) that the first
pronunciation option is 'tuhple'


I went to university in Pittsburgh and work in Washington, DC. I've
only ever heard it as toople.

If I heard someone say tuhple, I'd probably thing of Iago's words to
Desdemona's father along the lines of "that ram is tupping your ewe".
But I'm easily amused by alternate pronunciations.

Feb 13 '06 #7
Dennis Lee Bieber wrote:
On Sun, 12 Feb 2006 23:30:25 -0500, Steve Holden <st***@holdenwe b.com>
declaimed the following in comp.lang.pytho n:
I teach on both sides of the Atlantic, and have learned to draw a mental
breath before trying to pronounce the word "router". Americans find the
British pronunciation ("rooter") hilarious, despite the fact they tell
me I drive on "Root 66" to get to DC. The Brits are politer, and only
snigger behind my back when I pronounce it as Americans do, to rhyme
with "outer".

Strange... I never knew Route 66 got that far east... As I recall,
it runs (ran) from ~Los Angeles across the southwest before making an
upward turn through Missouri (where it passed just outside of Ft.
Leonard Wood) and there from meandered through St. Louis and up toward
Chicago...

The Route 66 that runs past Manassas and into DC appears to be a
completely different Interstate from the one made famous by the Chuck
Berry song, and I was really confused by it when I moved to the DC Metro
area.
Then again, from the "new world" perspective... A "route" is a fixed
path between points... A "router" is something that dynamically
determines paths -- so it may be seen as a different derivation...

{Or as I learned on my previous department: A pub's a bar, a bar's a
gate, a gate's a street}

:-)

regards
Steve
--
Steve Holden +44 150 684 7255 +1 800 494 3119
Holden Web LLC www.holdenweb.com
PyCon TX 2006 www.python.org/pycon/

Feb 13 '06 #8
Yeah, I was going to say it's "I-66," not "Route 66," which has been
replaced in pertainent parts by I-40.

tuh-ple.

Feb 13 '06 #9
In article <ma************ *************** ************@py thon.org>,
Steve Holden <st***@holdenwe b.com> wrote:
I teach on both sides of the Atlantic, and have learned to draw a mental
breath before trying to pronounce the word "router".


It took me a while to get used to that too, but honestly, the warm beer was
much more difficult to deal with. It's supposed to be cold on the way in
and warm on the way out.

My other problem is that I'm into woodworking as well as computers. When
I'm mindlessly browsing news and see an article headline that says
something like "router bits", I often have to stop and think about in which
context I'm supposed to interpret that (a router is a woodworking tool,
into which you can fit a variety of cutting bits).
Feb 13 '06 #10

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