The Coq mailing list

[Emilio Jesús Gallego Arias <e AT x80.org>]

Andrew Appel <appel AT princeton.edu> writes:

> 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.

Indeed, at the very least the Coq team should officially recommend to
pronounce "Coq" as "coke" in English; this is a solution not exempt of
flaws, but it seems to me that it is the only-short term viable
workaround for now.

I will make the point on the next Coq dev meeting.

My impression is that the Coq team would be happy to consider a name
change would a good replacement come up, there is indeed great concern
w.r.t. the side-effects of the current name.

We don't get reminded often of it tho, I'd say mainly due to two reasons:

- IAANM, there is not native English speaker in the Coq team

- Research and work in France happens mostly in French, and it turns out
  that "Coq" is a superb name in French! It is easily associated to
  "national pride", which really helps (subconsciously) in national
  funding contexts for example.

Brainstorming a bit, a possibility to try to keep the best of both
worlds is to keep "The Coq Project" as the official name of the project,
however name the particular implementation distributed by the project in
a different way.

Kind regards,
E.