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How do you say the "X" in OS X?


How do you say the "X" in OS X?  

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  1. 1. How do you say the "X" in OS X?

    • X...as in the letter.
      1303
    • 10...as in the number.
      634


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It's intended to be pronounced as 'ten' so preferably it should be followed as such. But... as you can see the majority of the.. um.. people interested in OS X doesn't seem to realize this, likely because they haven't seen, used or cared for the PREVIOUS Mac OS release, called... you guessed it.. OS 9. As a natural progression of version number it would've been written as OS 10 but then that doesn't 'look cool', you know? So off they went with Roman numerals, but they expect you to pronounce it as if it's OS 10.

 

The consequences of the Roman numerals go beyond just having multitude of people (incorrectly) pronouncing the name, but there are also some weird bunch who understand that X stands for '10', but makes the mistake of writing the version number as, for example, X.4.3. Perhaps if you're just SAYING out loud it might be okay to say 'oh ess ten dot four dot three' ('ten' dropped for redundancy) but it should be WRITTEN as 'OS X 10.4.3'.

 

Yeah, it's pretty whacked. Oh, and then there are folks who write it as 'OSX' and/or 'OS-X' which, I'm sure, purist Mac zealots would gasp in horror upon seeing such blasphemy. Hehe.

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I am confused as to why the predecessor to OS X wasn't OS IX. But it wasn't, it was OS 9. And before that, it was OS 8, and not OS VIII. While people may say the X is a roman numeral, I see no evidence of that, based on the fact that none of the other versions have used roman numerals.

 

In other words, it most certainly is OS ten (you can see the actual version NUMBER), but it's named OS X. If all the previous versions had used roman numerals, then it would make some sense to correct people saying "os 'ex'", but since none of them did, it seems like a rather normal assumption to think, "gee, if they wanted me saying 10, they'd put a one and a zero, and follow the paradigm set by all their previous versions. hmm, I guess version 10 is called os 'ex'."

 

So, no, it's not "stupid" of people to call it os "ex", it's stupid of apple to, for no apparent reason, switch to roman numerals.

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I am confused as to why the predecessor to OS X wasn't OS IX. But it wasn't, it was OS 9. And before that, it was OS 8, and not OS VIII. While people may say the X is a roman numeral, I see no evidence of that, based on the fact that none of the other versions have used roman numerals.

 

In other words, it most certainly is OS ten (you can see the actual version NUMBER), but it's named OS X. If all the previous versions had used roman numerals, then it would make some sense to correct people saying "os 'ex'", but since none of them did, it seems like a rather normal assumption to think, "gee, if they wanted me saying 10, they'd put a one and a zero, and follow the paradigm set by all their previous versions. hmm, I guess version 10 is called os 'ex'."

 

So, no, it's not "stupid" of people to call it os "ex", it's stupid of apple to, for no apparent reason, switch to roman numerals.

The X also comes from *nix

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I say it as "OS X". If jobs wanted people to say OS 10, he would have named it that! :)

 

That's odd you think that way, since Steve Jobs says OS 10 every time he talks about it.

 

Mac O S Ten dot Four dot three, build eight F one one one one, or it is eleven eleven? :lol:

 

Personally, I would say eleven eleven, just as I would say the previous build as ten ninety-nine.

 

The X also comes from *nix

 

Exactly, they switched to Roman numerals with the switch to a Unix base. If you really want to get technical, it's really Darwin version 8.4 anyway (well, for 10.4.4 at least), which is where the initial 8 in the build numbers comes from. Here is a link that explains the relationship between OS X versions and Darwin versions: Apple Darwin Releases

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I was surprised to see twice as many people are saying "ex" versus "ten".

 

I know it's "officially" OS ten, but I think OS ex is MUCH cooler sounding and indicates it's unix roots as well. So I just say "OS 'ex'".

 

besides, i'm only saying it in my head. If I were to say either "os ten" or "os ex" to anyone I know in RL, they'd have no clue what I was referring to anyways.

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I don't care! Maybe I don't say it the "official" way or the way that Apple intended, but I agree with Mashugly, and I pronounce it 'Ehks'. I don't know why, I just always did -> and it shouldn't matter anyway: I use the operating system OS X (however you say it), and I don't use it on "official" hardware, or the way that Apple intended it to be used. So what! I'll hack it how I want, and I'll say it how I want. :dev::P

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  • 2 weeks later...
its X as in the roman numeral 10, pronounced ten, successor to os9

 

True, 'X' stands for '10', but 'OS' stands for 'Operating System', and I don't say that. I'm not disputing the 'official' pronunciation, but the fact that so many people say 'ex' makes it legit.

 

It's a sad commentary on the state of the world when "sounding cool" is more important than being correct. ^_^

 

Well, that's one way language evolves - what's 'correct' changes (unless you live in France, maybe). If enough people say 'oh ess ex', then it's ok.

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Seconded....and as to Wesley's point, it would sound rather weird saying "OS 10 10.4.4". :blink:

 

Flame me all you want...I'll just reject your reality, and substitue my own. :)

 

No, because the Mac OS has always been pronounced Mac OS (version number). For example, the last Classic OS is Mac OS 9.2.2. The current Mac OS is Mac OS 10.4.5. Before OS 8, it was done by System (number), i.e. System 6.2

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the proper way is supposed to be "ten", but then again i did pronounce this last super bowl as super bowl "ex" "ell", i cant wait for next years super bowl. XXL is gonna rock!!! about time they changed it to shirt sizes!!

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  • 3 weeks later...
The Final answer! Fire up Textedit, type 'os x' and choose 'Start Speaking' from the menu Edit|Speech.

 

When you mac talks, it says OS TEN, even though there is a space between OS and X.

 

:P

 

Hahaha, yeah!!

 

I'm still going to call it OS 'eks' though... :P

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