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..Unpronounceable
Yadda-yadda, wack-wack, and other oddities
One of the reasons I ran the piece on pronouncing "http://www"; in
the previous issue was to mitigate a case of internesia [27]: an
age ago in Net time I had come across a lonely one-man campaign to
get Web-site owners to name their sites "web dot" in place of, or
in addition to, "www dot," but promptly lost track of where on the
Net I had seen this suggestion. Figured someone would send it to
me in response to "Lizard lips" [28]; and so several folks did.
Dave Yost is the man and his WebDot campaign [29] is perking along
nicely. A quick check with Infoseek reveals more than half a mil-
lion "web." URLs out of its database of 25 million.
Here is a selection from the mailbag in response to "Lizard lips."
(Correspondents from the current and former British Empire will
note that I have regularized punctuation around quotes to the
American style.)
Danny O'Brien <[email protected]>:
At NTK, we're pushing very hard for "www" to be replaced by
"yadda yadda yadda." Not shorter than the alternatives, but
more descriptive of prospective site content. [And appro-
priate for the week of the last Seinfeld episode as well --
ed.]
Richard Probst <[email protected]>:
I once heard Tim Berners-Lee say that he chose the name
"World Wide Web" because he wanted the name to have fewer
syllables than the acronym.
Pete Murray <[email protected]>:
A free booklet with "Tomorrows World" magazine suggested the
commonly accepted pronunciation was HIT WEB (?!)
Hendrik Levsen <[email protected]>:
We in Gemany are better off, since "www" spells "way way
way" in German. This is what everybody should do: name their
sites without www and have them be reachable with the www,
too. But publish the no-www name.
allen hurst <[email protected]>:
I usually call "//" "wack-wack," and "www" "wuh-wuh-wuh". It's
weird, but people always know what I'm talking about. Hence:
huttup-colon, wack-wack, wuh-wuh-wuh dot, tee-bee- tee-eff dot
com. I derived this unusual verbiage from a poem entitled
"waka-waka-bang-splat" [30]. I figured if "<" or ">" was a
"waka", then half of one of those ("/") must be a "wack."
Making little chopping motions with one's hand while
enunciating the URL also helps.
Joshua Newman <[email protected]>:
"Aitch-tee-tee-pee, double-dotter, wack-wack, three-dub dot"
and go on from there. This should be said as quickly as pos-
sible, perhaps by a coffee auctioneer.
Ian Douglas <[email protected]>:
Me, I always say "wawawa," which invariably gets really
weird looks from people hearing it for the first time. They
seem to think I have regressed to baby talk.
Julianne Chatelain <[email protected]>:
Over a year ago, Dave Shaw proposed "three-dub" as the
quickest (2-syllable) way to say "www."
David Long <[email protected]>:
Three w's must surely be a hexa-u.
[27] http://www.tbtf.com/jargon-scout.html
[28] http://www.tbtf.com/archive/05-11-98.html#s12
[29] http://web.Yost.com/Misc/webdot.html
[30] http://www.qnx.com/~glen/deadbeef/2225.html
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Chip Woods PHONE: +1(706)354 3783
Technology Coordinator FAX: +1(706)354 3775
Athens Academy WEB: www.athensacademy.org
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