how do you pronounce 'tuple'?
in [Python]
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From: Erik Max Francis on 13 Feb 2006 21:10 Grant Edwards wrote: > Of course! What did you expect from devotees of a language > named after one of the greatest comedy shows in TV history? Seriously? Endless references to it until it gets painfully old :-(. The Python language, at least, has seemed to have gotten past that point in its history when every post had to be accompanied by a Monty Python gag ... -- Erik Max Francis && max(a)alcyone.com && http://www.alcyone.com/max/ San Jose, CA, USA && 37 20 N 121 53 W && AIM erikmaxfrancis Whatever it is you came to teach me / I am here to learn it -- India Arie
From: Erik Max Francis on 13 Feb 2006 21:27 Terry Hancock wrote: > I doubt that helps much: I pronounce all of those words > (when I use them, which is not too often) as "-toopel". The > only tuple I pronounce with the "-uh-" is "couple", and I > usually call that a "two-tuple" when dealing with Python. I prefer the name _pair_ :-). > I suspect that even those who would pronounce 'quintuple' > "kwintuhpel" would say 'quintuplicate' as "kwinTOOPlikuht". > (that's the noun, not the verb, which is "kwintoopliKATE"). Yeah. The short form is that both are right and which one is more common is probably regional more than anything. I've heard people say _toople_ vs. _tuhple_, but I've never heard anyone say _quintoople_ vs. _quintuhple_ (granted, not that the situation arises all that often). But come to think of it, it kind of does. I've heard _quintuhplet_ and _sextuhplet_ and the like plenty of times, and I've never heard it pronounced the other way (in General American). m-w.com shows something interesting here -- the first listed pronunciation for _quintuple_ is oo with uh being an alternate, but the first listed pronunciation for _quintuplet_ is uh with oo being an alternate. Which probably goes to emphasize that that it's just whatever you're used to and there's no rhyme or reason to any of it. > So what's a 1-element tuple, anyway? A "mople"? "monople"? > It does seem like this lopsided pythonic creature (1,) ought > to have a name to reflect its ugly, newbie-unfriendly > nature. In mathematics there's really no such entity such tuples involve elements of cartesian products of sets, and so if there are no cartesian products involved you're just talking about an element of a set, which is just a thing. Of course that's still a completely valid construct in Python so the question stands. If a 4-tuple is a quadruple, a 3-tuple is a triple, a 2-tuple is an pair, then I guess a 1-tuple would be a single. Granted that's not nearly as gruesome enough a name to go with the special lopsided Pythonic creature mentioned above. I suggest we name it a hurgledink. -- Erik Max Francis && max(a)alcyone.com && http://www.alcyone.com/max/ San Jose, CA, USA && 37 20 N 121 53 W && AIM erikmaxfrancis Whatever it is you came to teach me / I am here to learn it -- India Arie
From: Erik Max Francis on 13 Feb 2006 21:29 Peter Maas wrote: > tuples are of latin origin, so one can derive the tuple words > systematically: > > Latin n-tuple > --------------------------- > ... ... > triplex triple > duplex duple > simplex simple Yeah but there's already plenty of existing English usage such that 3-tuple : triple :: 2-tuple : pair. (A 2-tuple is an "ordered pair" in mathematics.) If a 2-tuple is a pair, then it would seem to follow that a 1-tuple is a single. -- Erik Max Francis && max(a)alcyone.com && http://www.alcyone.com/max/ San Jose, CA, USA && 37 20 N 121 53 W && AIM erikmaxfrancis Whatever it is you came to teach me / I am here to learn it -- India Arie
From: Carl Cerecke on 13 Feb 2006 21:42 Erik Max Francis wrote: > Terry Hancock wrote: > >> I doubt that helps much: I pronounce all of those words >> (when I use them, which is not too often) as "-toopel". The >> only tuple I pronounce with the "-uh-" is "couple", and I >> usually call that a "two-tuple" when dealing with Python. > > > I prefer the name _pair_ :-). > >> I suspect that even those who would pronounce 'quintuple' >> "kwintuhpel" would say 'quintuplicate' as "kwinTOOPlikuht". >> (that's the noun, not the verb, which is "kwintoopliKATE"). > > > Yeah. The short form is that both are right and which one is more > common is probably regional more than anything. I've heard people say > _toople_ vs. _tuhple_, but I've never heard anyone say _quintoople_ vs. > _quintuhple_ (granted, not that the situation arises all that often). > > But come to think of it, it kind of does. I've heard _quintuhplet_ and > _sextuhplet_ and the like plenty of times, and I've never heard it > pronounced the other way (in General American). m-w.com shows something > interesting here -- the first listed pronunciation for _quintuple_ is oo > with uh being an alternate, but the first listed pronunciation for > _quintuplet_ is uh with oo being an alternate. Which probably goes to > emphasize that that it's just whatever you're used to and there's no > rhyme or reason to any of it. > >> So what's a 1-element tuple, anyway? A "mople"? "monople"? >> It does seem like this lopsided pythonic creature (1,) ought >> to have a name to reflect its ugly, newbie-unfriendly >> nature. > Of course that's still a completely valid construct in Python so the > question stands. If a 4-tuple is a quadruple, a 3-tuple is a triple, a > 2-tuple is an pair, then I guess a 1-tuple would be a single. Granted > that's not nearly as gruesome enough a name to go with the special > lopsided Pythonic creature mentioned above. I suggest we name it a > hurgledink. > So, ahhh, what about zero-tuples? zuple? uple? Surely it would be better for 2,1, and 0-tuples to be called 2,1, and 0-tuples. And, BTW, in New Zealand, I've only ever heard the pronunciation 'tupple'. toople sounds kind-of stoopid. Cheers, Carl.
From: Roy Smith on 13 Feb 2006 22:04
Erik Max Francis <max(a)alcyone.com> wrote: > (A 2-tuple is an "ordered pair" in mathematics.) If a 2-tuple is a > pair, then it would seem to follow that a 1-tuple is a single. Yeah, but an *ordered* single :-) A more interesting question is what do you call ()? A none-tuple? |