What are the pronunciations of these abbreviations?

Question

As a non-English speaking person I frequently have problems pronouncing certain "artificial" words or abbreviations.

How do you pronounce these words?

• GUID
• GUI
• C#

(Community wiki, so feel free to add more)

Answer 1

GOO-id (IPA: /ˈguːɪd/)

GOO-ee (IPA: /ˈguːi/)

(hard G in both cases)

SEE-SHARP (western) or SEE-HASH (asian)

---

(original post by edg)

Answer 2

I've always pronounced these:

• GUID - "goo-id", like the beginning of "good" and rhyming with "fluid"
• GUI - "gooey", like the beginning of "good" and rhyming with "moody" or "sooty"*
• C# - "see sharp"

Of course, I probably read them off a screen far more often than I ever say them out loud.

(As a data-point, I live in Scotland and am a native English speaker.)

*-I had "hay" here before, but I think the short "y" on these words is slightly closer to the sound I mean.

Answer 3

You might also enjoy this

The Chaos

Dearest creature in creation, Studying English pronunciation. I will teach you in my verse Sounds like corpse, corps, horse, and worse. I will keep you, Suzy, busy, Make your head with heat grow dizzy. Tear in eye, your dress will tear. So shall I! Oh hear my prayer.

Just compare heart, beard, and heard, Dies and diet, lord and word, Sword and sward, retain and Britain. (Mind the latter, how it's written.) Now I surely will not plague you With such words as plaque and ague. But be careful how you speak: Say break and steak, but bleak and streak; Cloven, oven, how and low, Script, receipt, show, poem, and toe.

Hear me say, devoid of trickery, Daughter, laughter, and Terpsichore, Typhoid, measles, topsails, aisles, Exiles, similes, and reviles; Scholar, vicar, and cigar, Solar, mica, war and far; One, anemone, Balmoral, Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel; Gertrude, German, wind and mind, Scene, Melpomene, mankind.

Billet does not rhyme with ballet, Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet. Blood and flood are not like food, Nor is mould like should and would. Viscous, viscount, load and broad, Toward, to forward, to reward. And your pronunciation's OK When you correctly say croquet, Rounded, wounded, grieve and sieve, Friend and fiend, alive and live.

Ivy, privy, famous; clamour And enamour rhyme with hammer. River, rival, tomb, bomb, comb, Doll and roll and some and home. Stranger does not rhyme with anger, Neither does devour with clangour. Souls but foul, haunt but aunt, Font, front, wont, want, grand, and grant, Shoes, goes, does. Now first say finger, And then singer, ginger, linger, Real, zeal, mauve, gauze, gouge and gauge, Marriage, foliage, mirage, and age.

Query does not rhyme with very, Nor does fury sound like bury. Dost, lost, post and doth, cloth, loth. Job, nob, bosom, transom, oath. Though the differences seem little, We say actual but victual. Refer does not rhyme with deafer. Foeffer does, and zephyr, heifer. Mint, pint, senate and sedate; Dull, bull, and George ate late. Scenic, Arabic, Pacific, Science, conscience, scientific.

Liberty, library, heave and heaven, Rachel, ache, moustache, eleven. We say hallowed, but allowed, People, leopard, towed, but vowed. Mark the differences, moreover, Between mover, cover, clover; Leeches, breeches, wise, precise, Chalice, but police and lice; Camel, constable, unstable, Principle, disciple, label.

Petal, panel, and canal, Wait, surprise, plait, promise, pal. Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, chair, Senator, spectator, mayor. Tour, but our and succour, four. Gas, alas, and Arkansas. Sea, idea, Korea, area, Psalm, Maria, but malaria. Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean. Doctrine, turpentine, marine.

Compare alien with Italian, Dandelion and battalion. Sally with ally, yea, ye, Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, and key. Say aver, but ever, fever, Neither, leisure, skein, deceiver. Heron, granary, canary. Crevice and device and aerie.

Face, but preface, not efface. Phlegm, phlegmatic, ass, glass, bass. Large, but target, gin, give, verging, Ought, out, joust and scour, scourging. Ear, but earn and wear and tear Do not rhyme with here but ere. Seven is right, but so is even, Hyphen, roughen, nephew Stephen, Monkey, donkey, Turk and jerk, Ask, grasp, wasp, and cork and work.

Pronunciation -- think of Psyche! Is a paling stout and spikey? Won't it make you lose your wits, Writing groats and saying grits? It's a dark abyss or tunnel: Strewn with stones, stowed, solace, gunwale, Islington and Isle of Wight, Housewife, verdict and indict.

Finally, which rhymes with enough -- Though, through, plough, or dough, or cough? Hiccough has the sound of cup. My advice is to give up!!!

-- Gerard Nolst Trenité a.k.a. Charivarius

Answer 4

I like "gwid" for GUID.

Answer 5

GOO-eed

GOO-ee (identical in pronunciation to "gooey" ("sticky"))

Hard G

oo as "zoo"

ee as in speed

Answer 6

you can hear gui as pronounced on forvo.com.
guid is there as well, but they just spell it out as an abbreviation.
c#: c sharp

Answer 7

GUID: jee yoo i dee

GUI: goo ee

C#: see sharp

The first is spelled out, G-U-I-D. The second is said as a word. The third is what microsoft appears to use, and given that it's their language their pronunciation is likely universal.

Note that the first two, and many more, are not universal, and generally if you need to take a shortcut and you don't know which version your audience is used to you should define it at the beginning so no one is left scratching their heads.

"So we start off with a Globally Unique ID, or [insert your pronunciation or shortcut here]..."

You should do this even if you think you know your audience. No one will take offense, and some will be glad you did.

Answer 8

I can't resist pointing out that, in the world of typography, the proper name for '#' is "octothorp". See The Elements of Typographic Style by Robert Bringhurst.

Answer 9

C# => C almohadilla in spanish

also

C# => se gato

Answer 10

You should listen to podcasts for pronunciation inspiration.

Answer 11

The last one is obviously C-pound.

Answer 12

In 2003, we have used "C Schweinegatter" in our German team for some time before we learned how to correctly pronounce "C#" (the "#" clearly looked like a "pig fence").

Hope this helps.