this post was submitted on 23 Jul 2025
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English is stupid, but how does "latex" get a "k" ending? I have heard people arguing for years that it's supposed to be pronounced that way, but never any justification for why.
From another comment:
It's also wrong, it's supposed to be a ch-sound as in Bach.
Depending on the time. In ancient Greek it was /k^h^/ (aspirated k, basically the normal k in English) which turned to /x/ as you said but neither is wRoNG, especially when your native language doesn't have one if the sounds
The k-sound is used when the chi is prefixed in front of certain vowels. The ch-sound is the truly correct pronunciation here, there's no history involved for that.
Knuth, the guy who coined it, also says the ch-sound is the correct one, though he also says the k-sound is also acceptable. As long as you do not use the ks-sound at least :)
Knuth is the perfect nerd, publishing a package where people are still discussing how to pronounce its name close to 50 years after.
Are you saying that the historical pronunciation is irrelevant or are you denying language change?
The historical pronunciation of this letter is irrelevant because it's a modern word with a modern pronunciation.
I had no idea that a software typesetting system was that old. Is that what Homer used to typeset the Odyssey?
Yes
Because it's not an X at the end, it's a Greek chi. Same with the arXiv preprint distribution
it's "archive," not are-ex-iv.
The greek ฯ should be a "ch" sound like "Bach" or "Loch". And if you copy that last character from the project page or anything it's definitely an X, not a ฯ.
Indeed, "CH" like "Bach" or "loch" is an accepted pronunciation of LaTeX. We didn't have unicode in the 1980s and LaTeX is a logotype so it doesn't really get to evolve.
Meh, it's pronounced Latex. I've chosen my hill to die on. Pretending it's a "k" or "ch" sound is dumb.
You can mispronounce any word you like.
Yeah, but I prefer to pronounce latex properly, just like the rubber.
If by "latex" you mean
\LaTeX, then that is impossible. Incidentally, it may interest you to know that the English alphabet does not map directly to phonemes or allophones. Sadly, you cannot know how a word is pronounced by looking at the letters that compose it. Isn't that wild?Nah, just LaTeX, the typesetting system. The one named entirely in characters from the English alphabet, named after the polymer emulsion.
Petition to change the name to RX4
99 what you did there...
(I know, IC isn't valid Roman numeral representation of 99, but it was the only joke I could think of.)
Among the lovely revival of arguing the One True Pronunciation, I personally see lay-tech as a portmanteau of "layout technology". Meaning in German discourse, it's
[tษรง], and in English[tษk]. Simple to remember, easy to derive, and matching the Gospel.Except that it's spelled "Latex" with all letters from the English alphabet and there is already an existing word with that spelling, therefore it is pronounced the same way as that word. You don't pronounce "Laser" as "Lah Seer" even though the "A" comes from "Amplification" and the "E" from "Emission". Once it became a word, it was pronounced using standard English pronunciation rules.
Latex, like the rubber stuff.
"Read the instructions", he was told, so he read them. And then he did lead Sean to the lead pipe.
Lol. Lmao even.