gigabytes: Jumping or Galloping?

emmline · Post by **emmline** » Mon Jun 16, 2008 8:08 pm

I realized, as I tried to say "gigabyte" at dinner tonight, that I wasn't sure how.*
Doc Brown, in Back to the Future, requires 1.21 jigawatts to get the DeLorean/time machine to work...but even at that, I had an inclination--when speaking of bytes--to say giga.

Dictionary.com allows as how either pronunciation is acceptable, but places the hard g first.

*why? Well, because I loaded a bit of freeware onto my Palm Centro which converts almost anything into anything. Seriously. It does acceleration, density, clothing sizes, radioactivity and angular speed...just for starters.
So, in the category "computers" I decided to find out how many nibbles in one gigabyte, only I wasn't sure how to express this thought out loud.
(the answer, it turns out, is 2.1474836e09. What "e" means is a different question altogether. I'm not a mathemetician.)

edit: Maybe I was tired when I wrote this. I said only the first G should be hard? Think of the possibilities...jijjabyte...gijjabyte...or, en español...heehahbeetay...

MTGuru · Post by **MTGuru** » Mon Jun 16, 2008 8:15 pm

It's scientific notation, Emm, 2.1474836 x 10^9 -- that's 10 raised to the ninth power = 1 000 000 000 = one billion (in American usage).

FWIW, I say gig as in "gig" or "give". It's a Greek root γίγα-, and there's no soft "J" sound in Greek. The gamma before iota is either hard, or slightly palatalized and affricated. In modern Greek it would be pronounced somewhat like our "Y" sound but breathier, like the g in a gyros sandwich. The closest phonemic equivalent in standard English is our plain old hard g.

emmline · Post by **emmline** » Mon Jun 16, 2008 8:31 pm

MTGuru wrote:It's scientific notation, Emm, 2.1474836 x 10^9 -- that's 10 raised to the ninth power = 1 000 000 000 = one billion (in American usage).

FWIW, I say gig as in "gig" or "give". It's a Greek root γίγα-, and there's no soft "J" sound in Greek. The gamma before iota is either hard, or slightly palatalized and affricated. In modern Greek it would be pronounced somewhat like our "Y" sound but breathier, like the g in a gyros sandwich. The closest phonemic equivalent in standard English is our plain old hard g.

Why are there so many people like my brother on this forum?

It's true, but I'm also kidding. I appreciate the etymology.
And I figured the e would be some way of containing a number of unruly length.

fel bautista · Post by **fel bautista** » Mon Jun 16, 2008 10:32 pm

MTGuru wrote:It's scientific notation, Emm, 2.1474836 x 10^9 -- that's 10 raised to the ninth power = 1 000 000 000 = one billion (in American usage).

But at least we didn't say Sagan's "billions and billions of stars" or Dr Morbius in "Forbidden Planet" with " 10x10x10 almost to infinity"

And now back to your regular programming

Innocent Bystander · Post by **Innocent Bystander** » Tue Jun 17, 2008 2:12 am

UK Billions are bigger. But with media hyperbole, everyone seems to aim for US billions because they get there quicker.

Jijabytes! I love it! I'll suggest it to the OSP - the Organisation for Subversive Pronunciation. I might even start using it myself!

I.D.10-t · Post by **I.D.10-t** » Tue Jun 17, 2008 4:56 am

My favorite is the number of times I hear the word gel pronounced "gel" and not "jel". As in "hand me the silica/polyacrylamide gel, please". A friendly reminder of how messed up the English language is and what a pain it must be to learn.

fel bautista · Post by **fel bautista** » Tue Jun 17, 2008 5:22 am

you mean with a hard "G"??

I.D.10-t · Post by **I.D.10-t** » Tue Jun 17, 2008 5:23 am

fel bautista wrote:you mean with a hard "G"??

As in girl. Not like the name Jill.

peeplj · Post by **peeplj** » Tue Jun 17, 2008 5:38 am

Hard G.

"Gigabytes," not "Jigabytes."

--James

emmline · Post by **emmline** » Tue Jun 17, 2008 5:50 am

Innocent Bystander wrote:
Jijabytes! I love it! I'll suggest it to the OSP - the Organisation for Subversive Pronunciation. I might even start using it myself!

I know. It is good. And I didn't even mean to suggest it.

CHasR · Post by **CHasR** » Tue Jun 17, 2008 6:14 am

clearly, chiffers prefer their 'G's" hard....

djm · Post by **djm** » Tue Jun 17, 2008 6:24 am

But their strings loose.

djm

Flyingcursor · Post by **Flyingcursor** » Tue Jun 17, 2008 10:32 am

And our gigas giggly.

I think I'll start saying "Jigabyte" just to see how long it takes before someone corrects me.

Even better, I'll pronounce the "J" as in Jaque and not Jack.

This will be fun.

Post by **Nanohedron** » Tue Jun 17, 2008 10:34 am

Basic rule of thumb would be "J" sound preceding I or E, "G" sound preceding A, O, or U. But I say "gig-a-bites", not "jig-a-bites", and yet I also say "jy-gan-tick". A hard-G "gel" seems just wrong, though.

I wish some other comparative terms than "hard" and "soft" could have been come up with for the letter G. The sound of "J" for me is harder than "G", and I don't like the cognitive dissonance one bit, I can tell you.

ketida · Post by **ketida** » Tue Jun 17, 2008 11:23 am

I can never remember how to say "gesture" either.

I finally had to memorize the phrase "Don't Guess, it's Jesture" and I still have to think about it every time before I say it.

It's somehow unfair. Spelling should be more phonetic. Or fonetic.

Chiff and Fipple Forums

gigabytes: Jumping or Galloping?

How do you say gigabyte?

gigabytes: Jumping or Galloping?