How is the last name of the mathematician, Leonhard Euler, pronounced?
Euler like “oiler”
OR
Euler like “yooler”
I’ve always thought it was “yooler,” but a coworker says it’s “oiler.”
Anybody know?
oiler
I did a school report on him years ago and read that it was pronounced “Oiler.”
Hm. I’ve only ever heard it as “Yew-ler,” to rhyme with Beuller (as in Ferris).
Thanks. Ignorance has been fought.
I’ll definitely have to get used to that pronounciation.
Just to back up what people have said, Dictionary.com, Merriam-Webster Online, and Wikipedia all agree with the “oiler” pronounciation.
All my maths professors pronounce his name as “oiler”.
He was a Swiss national who spoke German as his native tongue, and in German this name is pronounced as “oiler.”
Take care not to extend this odd pronunciation of ‘eu’ to Euclid. People will give you funny looks if you start talking about non-oyclidean geometries.
Euclid was Greek. Euler uses the German pronounciation and is definitely pronounced “oiler”.
You might think it odd, but it’d be closer to what old Euclid himself would have said. 
Which is why the ‘e’ is pronounced on ‘Porsche’.
I balked at first when pronouncing Euler’s name. After speaking German for (OMG has it been that long since German I?) 12 years now, it seems plainly obvious though. 
Reading what I just posted I should clarify: When I FIRST pronounced Euler’s name, it took some getting used to…which was when I learned about him in Algebra II.
As a random aside, is there a disciplinary split here?
My Math profs all referred to him as “oiler”, but my aerospace professors (both, ironically, German) called him “yooler”.
I have a book on recreational mathematics written by Martin Gardner and one of the chapters is titled “Euler’s Spoilers”. Unless Mr Gardner likes to make lousy rhymes, the chapter title suggests an “oiler” pronunciation.
Just be careful with pronunciations, because as I’ve learned, some people around here are just harsh.
The online dictionary say ‘oiler.’
[slight hijack]
Funny the OP should ask this. On Monday, my algebra professor put e on the board and asked if anyone knew what it was (it’s an algebra refresher course to prepare students for Calculus). Anyway, I seemed to be the only one who knew and said that it was Euler’s number. I pronounced Euler yoo-ler since that’s the way my father, the Yale Theoretical Chemistry Ph.D., always pronounced it… She said I was right but pronounced it “oiler”. Thanks for clearing this up, dopers.
[/slight hijack]
Adam, who can find 2,718,281,828 ways to hijack a thread. 
So you reject the misprint theory - that he actually meant “Spoolers”?