The Coq mailing list

[Andrew Appel <appel AT princeton.edu>]

Some people I have worked with, Americans who are uncomfortable with the word, pronounce Coq in English as "Coke".   At the time (several years ago) I thought this was silly.  Why did I think so?  Because it's neither the French nor the English pronunciation of Coq or cock, and anyone pronouncing it that way is clearly employing a euphemism to avoid discomfort.

In light of this week's discussion, I would say that it's not silly to avoid discomfort;  especially when the subject of the discomfort is entirely irrelevant to the topic of discourse (which is, in this case, interactive theorem proving using a dependent type theory); and especially when the discomfort falls primarily on one group of people (in this case, anglophone women).

So I propose a solution for discussion:  keep the name Coq and explain that the correct pronunciation in English of the tool name is "Coke" (and this pronunciation has nothing to do with the pronunciation of coq in French or cock in English).    But for this solution to work, the whole (anglophone) community has to adopt it.