Why is Latex pronounced as "Latec"?

[Zack K]

I've always pronounced it as its spell. It seems weird that you pronounce the x as a c/k.

 

[andrewkirk]

Because the thing that looks like an X is supposed to be a Greek letter $\chi$, which has a hard 'k' sound rather than 'ks'.

Read more about it here.

 

[DrClaude]

Read more about it here.

There is a link in there to a conference Knuth gave in 2010 using hand-written transparencies!

 

[fresh_42]

Because the thing that looks like an X is supposed to be a Greek letter $\chi$, which has a hard 'k' sound rather than 'ks'.

Read more about it here.

Thanks, I started to doubt that I pronounced it wrong all the years, since I pronounce it with a $\chi$ which in Greek is neither $k$ nor $x$.
[çi:]

 

[Vanadium 50]

"Latex" is pronounced "LAY-tex". \LaTeX, however, is pronounced "lah-TEHK".

 

[fresh_42]

"Latex" is pronounced "LAY-tex". \LaTeX, however, is pronounced "lah-TEHK".

Sure it shouldn't be L.A.Tehk?

 

[StatGuy2000]

"Latex" is pronounced "LAY-tex". \LaTeX, however, is pronounced "lah-TEHK".

I have never heard LaTeX pronounced "lah-TEHK". Nearly everyone I've ever worked with pronounced it "LAY-tehk". In fact, the post by @andrewkirk above gives an explanation regarding pronunciation, and the link he's provided confirms my own observations.

 

[DrClaude]

Sure it shouldn't be L.A.Tehk?

Sure! Leslie Lamport said he doesn't care how you pronounce it, so long that it is not "L.A."

 

[Borek]

Why is X pronounced 'its own way unrelated to anything else' is a question that can be asked about every second English word.

 

[BillTre]

Why is X pronounced 'its own way unrelated to anything else' is a question that can be asked about every second English word.

Clearly, X (in the English language) is a variable and can be replaced with a variety of different sounds.

 

[fresh_42]

Clearly, X (in the English language) is a variable and can be replaced with a variety of different sounds.

But $\chi$ equals (which - t - wh - i).

 

[Klystron]

Pronounce a neologism how you prefer. Understanding then becomes a problem for your audience.

Seriously. Appending a Greek letter to a Latin-sounding prefix makes for an interesting logo but the answer to your question could be: pronounce the word as the people around you do to the best of your ability.

Personally, I treat the Chi as an x and (mis)-pronounce the neologism as I would the x in the word 'text' with a long a in the first syllable. Lay-tex like the older commercial name for acrylic paint (latex).

 

[jedishrfu]

There's another part of the story. Knuth wanted to copyright the Tex as the name but Honeywell got there first with its Text Executive (Tex) scripting language:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Text_Executive_Programming_Language

and so I think they settled on LaTeX.

For me I say lah-tex because "ahh live in Texas" and latex is a paint. LaTeX got its name from Lamport who created the Lamport TeX typesetting system.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LaTeX

 

[Klystron]

There's another part of the story...[snip]...and latex is a paint...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LaTeX

Vindication of my pronunciation at the third level of analysis; extract from @jedishrfu link with my bold text:

"The characters T, E, X in the name come from the Greek capital letters tau, epsilon, and chi, as the name of TeX derives from the Greek: τέχνη (skill, art, technique); for this reason, TeX's creator Donald Knuth promotes a pronunciation of /tɛx/ (tekh)[15] (that is, with a voiceless velar fricative as in Modern Greek, similar to the ch in loch). Lamport writes "TeX is usually pronounced tech, making lah-teck, lah-teck, and lay-teck the logical choices; but language is not always logical, so lay-tecks is also possible."