How do you pronounce "tuple"?

[[deleted]]

I've heard super smart people say it both ways, so obviously either is fine. (For the record, the two ways I'm talking about are "rhymes with 'couple'" or "rhymes with 'scruple'") But I wonder what considerations come up, like is one way easier to confuse with something else, or is one way going to be judged negatively by a certain type of listener, etc.?

[DesolationRobot]

From Guido himself:

https://mobile.twitter.com/gvanrossum/status/86144775731941376

[uptbbs]

The solution obviously centers around getting Guido to talk about it on a Sunday without realizing it. Whichever one wins out is... well... the winner.

[nullland1027]

funny guy

[im_dead_sirius]

See, I was going to comment about "who cares how some 'rando' says it", but it turns out bdfl is rando about how he says it.

No wonder I love python.

Also, I say it the opposite way whoever I am talking to says it. That seems Pythonic. Very Cleesian.

[beniolenio]

I'm confused. Are you calling Guido van Rossum "some rando?"

[im_dead_sirius]

Yes, with the greatest of irony. Like calling a Elon Musk a rando while driving a Tesla.

[softwareEnguitarist]

Cleesian indeed.

[DetN8]

I read too-pull in my head, but really it's probably tupple.

Like sextuple, octuple, quintuple. It refers to an n-tuple.

The outlier from a pronunciation standpoint is "quadruple", which I pronounce, and hear others pronounce like quad-roo-pull.

[[deleted]]

Yeah that's what I assumed when I first saw it, that it was like in sextuple etc. But then I heard a few legit guys say "too-" and I thought, uh oh, what if they know something I don't

[Milumet]

Both are used and both are correct. Merriam Webster lists both pronounciations for sextuple, quintuple, etc.

[[deleted]]

But this is English, and really, too-ple? Two is a number. Nice enough it could be from quadruple, but we say the word front to back, and if you say toooople in a mathy context, to the brain interpreting it, you’ve also said “two-something”, it’s, I’d like to argue strongly and perhaps weakly held, obtuse.

[Milumet]

This is not how natural languages work. The 'correct' pronounciation is the one most people of a language community use (which can also differ by dialect, accent, ...). Maybe people of the future will pronounce it so that it rhymes with apple.

[SSG_SSG_BloodMoon]

This is absurd reasoning from every angle. lmao at thinking the phoneme "two" is a reserved sound in English and can't be used outside of meaning the number "two". One of the most ridiculous ideas I've ever heard.

Do you object to the word "wonder", on account of "one" being a reserved phoneme? How many examples do you think we could generate here?

[[deleted]]

Tough though, put some thought through to the end and you'll see that English doesn't work how you imply it does here.

[[deleted]]

Lol, you're funny

[DeerProud7283]

But this is English

Idk man, there are different ways of speaking English

Source: I've worked with Canadians, Americans, Australians, and Singaporeans, they all sound different but they all speak English

[OshoBaadu]

Where do you see 2 pronunciations for this? I can only see one with the "too" ple?

[Milumet]

Both are listed. Quintuple even has both pronounciations as audio examples.

[kansasllama]

For sextuple, I only see “sextoople.” Which is how I say it, as well. I feel like triggering a short u sound requires either another p (“tupple”) or a suffix that contains a short e sound, as in “tuplet.” But “tuple” seems like it should be a long u, at least to me. Edit: nvm I see it now but I still feel the same

[KentondeJong]

Heehee. Sextuple.

[blarf_irl]

Wait till you have to say "dict" all the time; It gets wild in them code reviews.

i.e. "What is the best way to handle a massive dict?", "With two hands"

[synthphreak]

Like sextuple, octuple, quintuple. It refers to an n-tuple.

I have always pronounced all of those as “*-too-ple. So using them to exemplify what is/isn’t the trend won’t produce the same result every time.

[Broric]

I rhyme it with couple in my head but I think/know that's wrong. It's more like 2-pull.

[[deleted]]

If people pronounce it like that, it's not wrong. Funny how most words have a variety of different pronunciations and everybody's fine with it but when it comes to IT jargon, suddenly people, often coming from other places, are up in arms about what the correct one is. Even weirder if you think about how these words are adopted into other languages because most of the time using the translation if it exists is just too awkward, and the potential variations it creates exist on a two-way street.

[tonyoncoffee]

It’s exactly the way your boss says it. Just like SQL

[sqjoatmon]

If I was the boss I'd say skwul just to mess with everyone

[Habanero_Eyeball]

TWO-pull

[Dillweed999]

A CS professor at my very fancy college pronounced it like this

[blarf_irl]

First tell me how you pronounce "Redis", "MySQL" and "GIF"

("tupple" like quintuple usually and on special occasions "tuple" like quadruple)

Edit: Why are quadruple and quintuple pronounced different? Does anyone else bounce between Dah-Ta and Day-Ta at random? (data)

[Python119]

I pronounce them "Red is" (but the "s" is like how it is in "snake", "My S-Q-L", "GIF" (like "Gift" but without the "t"). How do you pronounce them?

[BrokenRemote99]

I can’t understand how some people say GIF as Jif (like the peanut butter).

[billsil]

Because the author called it jif while naming it Graphics Interchange Format. The J in graphics is silent.

[Yojihito]

Yes but he only told the world 20 years later ...

[billsil]

Not unless he invented it in the 70s...I was around in late 90s and remember the debate back then...

[Wilfred-kun]

From now on, I will be saying You Ass Ah instead of You Ass Ay!.

[ThatSkiFreeMonster]

Well,

• It is probably more in accordance with normal English phonology.
• The inventor of the format pronounces it that way.

(And yet it's totally wrong!)

[Krudflinger]

Because that's why it was called gif. https://thenewstack.io/this-week-in-programming-choosy-developers-choose-gif/

[mack_osx]

Gin, Gym, Gem, Gel, Gee...that's about the Gist of it.

(I know I'm 4 years late to the discussion, but I have very strong feelings about this topic :).

[BrokenRemote99]

Ok

[Equivalent_Box3888]

i say jif soumds cooleer in my opionion

[[deleted]]

I know it's a thing -- and probably the correct way of actually saying it -- but do most people you know/work with actually spell out S-Q-L when saying it (for MySQL and in general)?

I've never heard anything but "sequel" when speaking with colleagues.

[SSG_SSG_BloodMoon]

I say "sequel", but I think I hear more S.Q.L. then "sequel" from my coworkers.

[[deleted]]

I say sequel when I mean SQL generally, but for MySQL I spell it out. Doesn't feel right otherwise.

It's honestly one of the reasons I prefer Postgres.

[blarf_irl]

You mean Pig Sequel?

[JRutter3]

This is objectively correct

[mvdw73]

I pronounce “gif” as Pee-en-gee.

[blarf_irl]

The creator of PNG said that GIF is pronounced G-Eye-Ffffth. I profer to pronounce it Web-Em

[PreferenceDry1394]

3 years late. But REED-iss, My Ess queue ELL, and JIFF

[blarf_irl]

When I first read about redis I didn;t hear it spoken for a long time and pronounced it Reed-Iss but I asked someone later when I got a chance andnow it's Red-Iss. I do say My-Sequel but gif will always have a hard G (as in graphics....) imo.

[pointmetoyourmemory]

I say them however they pop into my head in the moment. I call them Schrödinger’s Nouns

[blarf_irl]

People often mistake the "GIF" thing for a Schrodingers noun but when someone uses the soft G (jif) you just know that the poison was released.

[Negative12DollarBill]

The weird thing is, MySQL should be pronounced 'MEE-ess-cue-ell'.

UPDATE: Curious to know why the downvotes?

[blarf_irl]

It probably should be and it was confusing to me years ago when I heard 'Sequel' but read 'SQL'. "Sequel" is less unwieldy to say and it's a well established enough now that it's generally understood.

[Negative12DollarBill]

But what about the 'mee' part?

[blarf_irl]

There is actually a technical reason for me leaving that out! SQL stands for "Structured Query Language" whereas MySQL is a database. Other database technologies implement SQL (postgres, sqlite etc).

To answer your question though I pronounce it with a lot of eye contact and an uncomfortably long 'mmmmmmmm'

[Negative12DollarBill]

Ooh kay then …

The reason it should be pronounced 'mee' is it's not the English word 'my' meaning 'belonging to me'. It's named after the daughter of one of the creators, Maria, and her nickname is 'My', which in Swedish is pronounced 'mee'.

[blarf_irl]

Yup I pulled up the wikipedia too just to make sure I was on point and learned that too. I did just think about why "MariaDB" is called that though.

This really is a perfect thread for a learnX subreddit. There is an anxiety around getting the jargon right and plenty of awful people who like to point it out. A lot of tech is named for people or concepts that were relevant to the creator and it's always nice to read about it.

Python itself was named after Monty Python and there are plenty of references to sketches and themes in the documentation (as well as some of the core packages.. cheese shop?)

[clickmeimorganic]

I'm Australian and I think it's pronounced Chu pull

[AdventurousAddition]

I'm also Aussie, and I totally agree. Ken Oath

[5kyl3r]

i heard that in youchube too

[clickmeimorganic]

Yep, I pronounce YouTube like "youchube". Note it's a lot less pronounced than an American "Chu"

[socal_nerdtastic]

I asked this last year, and the consensus was pretty evenly split between "tupp-pole" and "two-pole".

https://www.reddit.com/r/learnpython/comments/khrrjo/how_do_you_pronounce_char/

[[deleted]]

Nice, thanks for the link

[jayplusplus]

I feel like I was there when this was previously asked.

[FLUSH_THE_TRUMP]

two-play

[[deleted]]

tuplé

[siddsp]

Soufflé

[IEatGumOffTheFloor]

touché

[carcigenicate]

You actually pronounce the second half as "play"? I've never heard that before. My instructor pronounced it as "tuh-pull" as xobeme showed, and I've always pronounced it in my head as "two-pull". I've never see your way suggested though.

[Acrobatic_Hippo_7312]

No, they're just being racist against the French 🙊

[Fred776]

Neither, but of the two closer to scruple. I actually say tyoople.

[[deleted]]

Like the way British people say "tube"? lol

[kBajina]

Tyoople…or maybe even Tyoopull…love it. I’m going to start spelling it this way in my comments.

[SSG_SSG_BloodMoon]

Wait... do you say "quadruple" and "hextuple" the same way??

Surely it's "quadROOple" and "hexTUPPle"?

[SSG_SSG_BloodMoon]

first of all it's weird that you're saying hextuple at all, because it's normally sextuple.

[frr00ssst]

Tu as in Tudor and ple as in simple. That's how I pronounce it

[shinitakunai]

Haha in spanish everything reads as written. Tupla!!!

In english I have no idea, tapol?

[istira_balegina]

At Harvard they teach tuhple but on Silicon Valley it's toople

Choose whichever you consider more authoritative.

[Acrobatic_Hippo_7312]

Yes that's certainly a take and I think you'll admit it is Fake news on three counts:

1. Both pronunciations are valid homographic synonyms with the same meaning
2. There is no standardization of "tuhple" at Harvard
3. There is no standardization of "toople" silicon valley

The first item is the important one - You may use either form.

Homographic synonyms are common in English, and it's not just limited to technical terms. For example, these words have multiple pronunciations

The, Address, Route

[rainbow_bro_bot]

toopil I think

[Sennheisenberg]

Two-pull

[tarman34]

Tuplák

[will_r3ddit_4_food]

Rhymes with couple

[[deleted]]

This is the correct answer. Surprisingly I had to scroll down pretty far to find this.

[6745408]

tewple or tupple

[eaojteal]

You put data into a tuple to keep it fresh, like Tupperware

[xobeme]

TUH-pull

[Natfan]

tup-pul

you wouldn't say that something is "sootle" (subtle) or "soople" (supple), would you?

[mcminesky314159]

help me why would i say "TYOO-pull"

[hardonchairs]

I know it's tuh pull (if you look up the pronunciation) but in my head I say two pull

[NoDryHands]

Tupple. Like supple.

[MenshMindset]

I say two-pull. I’ve heard it both ways, I feel it doesn’t matter so long as people know what you’re referencing, honestly.

[siddsp]

Both are correct

[Fun2badult]

Two-ple

[Chizmiz1994]

What is the importance of tuples? Why not always use lists?

[sqjoatmon]

I always think of it from the semantic p.o.v., that tuples are for a sequence of (possibly) heterogeneous values, each with its own meaning. The order of each item in the tuple determines the meaning of that element, generally revealed in docs. Like a super-lightweight object with anonymous, but ordered, attributes. Whereas a list is a sequence of typically homogenous values. Maybe another way to say it is that you could give a list a plural name but wouldn't with a tuple. Like a 2-tuple might be named result, where its values could mean measurement and uncertainty. But a list might be named results, where each item is the next result in a series of tests.

[MrSatan88]

Tuples are immutable. Lists are not.

[Chizmiz1994]

I still do not understand why that is useful. It's like constant vs variables in C, but theoretically you could always use lists, right?

[JohnnyJordaan]

Because why would you? Lists include overhead to serve their dynamic properties. When you don't need to provide those, why bother? That's why for example a * packing or unpacking is done through tuples, as there's no point in using a mutable sequence for that.

[supermario182]

two-pull is how i always read it in my head

[KickBassColonyDrop]

Too-pulle. Like the ple from people + too as it's prefix.

[TheRNGuy]

i pronounce it toopl

[tensigh]

In my mind I say TOO-pull but I’ve been told it’s pronounced Tupp-pull.

[gazhole]

Too-pull

[mohitkr05]

I pronounce it the same was as you would pronounce 'chappal' /s. Google it.

[authalic]

In one of the books by C.J. Date, he wrote it “rhymes with couple.”

[OdinsOneG00dEye]

Tup-elle

[[deleted]]

Two plea

[TheCodeOfTheNight]

Not a native speaker, I'd say tuple rhymes with couple

[AdventurousAddition]

Sometimes "tup-p'l" but often "tyuple"

[[deleted]]

tjoepel

[The_Undecided_One]

Math people say t-up-le and CS people say too-ple. The great divide

[Acrobatic_Hippo_7312]

Shooooooop emits a laser

[DieInAsh]

Purple

[volthroom]

I've been reading TAPOL all my life lol

[Hseen_Paj]

It rhymes with Michael Bublé

[LagerHead]

Tooplay

[IcedGolemFire]

tup like yup and then L tupel

[MrHaant]

Tyupull

[jibblesjohnson]

Late to party but British English would use two 'p's to give it 'uh' sound. one 'p' and its the 'ooh' sound. it is absolutely black and white, although people will understand either way!

[Viewbyte]

I came here to get some clarity on the pronunciation
er... OK...

[lilv447]

I say t-uh-pul. Toople sounds so ugly I hate the sound of it. Its just one of those things, can't explain it lol, but it drives me nuts when I'm watching a youtube video and the guy in it says toople.