ETA: (missed edit window)
After reading link, United Postal Service has always been U-P-S to me, not sure why. “Ups” sounds funny…
Me, too.
I have never heard anyone pronounce it “ups.”
I pronounce it as Frequently Asked Questions. It just doesn’t come up often enough for me to feel the need to shorten it when speaking it out loud.
In my head I say Fack but on the rare occasion I say it out loud I always say “F-A-Q”.
F-A-Q. Never heard anyone say ‘fack’ - it would, after all, sound a little too much like ‘fuck’ for most people’s ears I think.
OpalCat, while I have long respected you and your opinions, I’m afraid I’m going to have to come down pretty hard on you here.
I’ve been in Computer Science for a loooong time. It’s has been and always be Eff-A-Cue. I have never heard anyone say it any differently.
Pronouncing it any other way makes the person sound as if they are brain damaged, a sitcom character, or some such. It’d be like hearing someone saying “M.P.H” as “meff” or some such.
Spell it out.
Interesting that everyone who pronounces it as a word (and I’m among them) seems to agree the pronunciation is fack. Nobody seems to be suggesting it’s pronounced fake.
It’s an acronym, so fack it is. If it were, say, FQA, it would be an initialism and unpronouncable as a word.
But then I pronounce SUVs, those 10-gallon-to-the-mile trucks, as suvs.
Heh. I’ve never heard anyone say anything other than spelling it out either.
How do those of you who say “fack” deal with PDF and BMP?
Pee Dee Eff and either Bee Em Pee or bitmap.
How do you deal with words like “cat”? See Ayy Tee?
The same way you do everything else. The rule is that you pronounce those you can and don’t the ones you can’t. There are a few exceptions, like UPS, and stuff like SQL where someone tried to get people pronounce it like it had several missing vowels.
And for everyone saying crap about the OP, I’ll point out that Facks is winning. This is why you shouldn’t judge people as morons for not fitting into your own personal jargon. The fact that computer people say it one way means jack shit in the real world.
Oh, and BMP is often pronounce as bimp, in the same way PNG is ping.
Of all the polls ever held on the SDMB, this is the one with the result that most surprises me. I honestly would have guessed that 97% of people said “F-A-Q.”
I pronounce mySQL as “my Ess Cue Ell” even though in my head I hear it as “my sequel.” Don’t know why.
I just say “frequently asked questions”.
Another vote for ‘fack.’ But then, I say it that way outloud, too.
Me too.
But I often assume that the person I’m speaking to won’t get what I mean if I say “fack” so that’s why I usually say “frequently asked questions.” Unless I know the person is internet-savvy enough to get “fack” or even “F-A-Q” which is often not the case.
This. I’ll WRITE it as FAQ, but it’s just not a good verbal constriction.
I mean, who pronounces FBI any other way than EFF BEE EYE?
Besides, it’s a plural thing, so while you could say EFF AYE QUEUES, it’d be more confusing to tell someone to go check the FACKS. Especially if they don’t have a fax machine.
Either say it as ‘fack’, or actually say the whole phrase (‘frequently asked questions’)…saying out the letters is the worst of both worlds.
I have. In the 70’s I worked for a Dutchman who had emigrated to the States as a young adult. He never acquired full command of English, and his speech was filled with malapropisms and oddities. He always said “ups” instead of “U.P.S.” (United Parcel Service, by the way.)
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