Pronunciations of common R terms

General
1

Inspired by this post:

There are way more terms that are pronounced differently. I wanted to collect some info on how people say things out loud.
Add your examples in comments!
(Pardon me not using IPA symbols!)

  • CRAN: is it krun, kran, see-ran, see-run, or C-R-A-N
  • dplyr: dee-ply-R (dee-playa) or dee-ply-er (deep liar)
  • purrr: do you really roll your r's? :slight_smile:
  • stringr: string-R? stringer? :blush: (all the other words ending in "r" go here, too, basically)
  • UseR: user or use-R?
  • broom: broom or bee-room?
  • ggraph: gee-graph or gee-gee-graph? (redundant G, but in line with ggplot)

These are a few examples where I heard more than one version.

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2

I don't think I've ever heard anyone else say these aloud, so here is how I read them:

CRAN: kran like cranberry
dplyer: dee-ply-er
stringr: stringer
UseR: use-R

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3

I am also curious about this. Haha leave it to us R-users to get caught up in the logistics of things. It's good for the community to decide on things like this. haha.

Things I'm curious about:

  • ggplot2 - is obvious (gee-gee-plot-two) but what about...
  • ggraph - is it (gee-gee-graph) or (gee-graph)
  • mostly anything pertaining to the the ggFamily of libraries.
4

Every time I work with a "gg" package (which is, like, every day), I always briefly think of GG Allin :rofl::laughing:
https://twitter.com/imtaraas/status/908909049336483840

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I can't wait to use library(ggallin) including dependencies from the punkR package. It's the best package to use when you want to write ugly, scummy R code! lol

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6

Ugh. Feel free to kill the GG Allin image, and let users search for themselves...at their own discretion.

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7

Since useR2017 in Brussels and the great keynote about "20 years of CRAN" by Uwe Ligges I think we can say it is pronounced "see-ran" not "kran"

You can see this keynote online

CRAN means comprehensive R archive network and there are also a CTAN for Tex, a CPAN for Perl and surely others. I think this is the source of the pronunciation.

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8

Interesting. But "comprehensive" starts with a 'k' sound, doesn't it? :wink:
Are we getting into another GIF <-> JIF flame war? :smile: I hope not!

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May I also refer to the wisdom of the crowd? :wink:
Polled by @mine a while back, with 76% for K-ran :raised_hands:

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10

I pronounce CRAN like cranberries too. But don't look at me for correct pronunciation of anything. I can't pronounce the word semicolon properly, and that's why I love R, you don't need semicolons at the end...

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11

As a Perl user, I'm familiar with see-pan. I don't think I've ever heard that pronounced (at all), but see-pan is what I see it as. Hence see-ran also for me.

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I'm currently teaching a course that is an intro to R and SAS. Imagine the semicolon confusion!

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13

Sometimes even the authors of the packages themselves throw a red herring at us :slight_smile: https://twitter.com/drob/status/883291829239660544

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14

I have expanded the list! Thanks!
Bee-room... Who'd guess...

15

ggraph: gee-gee-raff
httr: hitter or h-t-t-r (I like the latter, though I feel that's unpopular amongst people I know)
CRAN: cran (one word)
lapply: el-apply (not la-ply)

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16

I work with someone on the core developer team and he pronounces it "see-ran," which is consistent with the explanation given by @cderv.

As for the pronunciation of the "pipe" operator (%>%), my guess is that the name comes from Unix/Linux shell scripting, where the pipe operator is the | (vertical bar). It has been a while, but when I worked exclusively in Unix terminals with a team of researchers, we would say, "pipe it to." For example, the Unix expression "ls -lt | more" would be "ls minus lt pipe it to more." So now I say "output pipe it to input" for "output %>% input" in R.

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17

My usage for what I've said out loud:

  • CRAN as in cranberry
  • dplyr is de-ply-er, where it's "de" as in "death"
  • purrr as vapply :stuck_out_tongue:
  • stringr as stringer
  • %>% as "piped" (because who even uses the others?)

From basic R:

  • vcov as "vee coh vee"
  • eapply is "ee-ah-ply", but lapply is "la-ply" (with "la" as in "laugh")

The most fun to say:

  • Sys.which, because it makes me think "system sandwich"
  • YAML as "yeah-muhl" (as in "multiply") because it just is