• E.M.H. (unregistered) in reply to E.M.H.
    E.M.H.:
    C tic-tac-toe

    Awww, crud, someone above beat me to it... :(

  • Xaox (unregistered) in reply to McGuffin

    I've always liked "ess-cue-ell", here's why:

    CFO - "$accountingSystemVendor says we need a 'MS-sequal' server. Why do we need another server if we already have one?"

  • (cs)

    I'd recommend C Raute.

  • (cs)

    SQL should clearly be pronounced "squill".

  • Matthew (unregistered) in reply to SnapShot

    C Tick-Tak-Toe

  • eekee (unregistered)

    Okay, this isn't precisely relevant to this article, but I've got to say it some time. The very fact that # even could be described as a pound sign is a huge WTF to me! As far as I can tell, the only way it got that name was via ancient 7-bit ascii printers, which sometimes substituted the pound sign for the hash character. How it could have spread from that to such widespread usage, I don't know, unless perhaps it was an acceptable substitute for the true pound sign for a long time before that. Still seems a case of extreme carelessness on the part of a great many people for # to aquire the name "pound sign".

  • (cs) in reply to CorXy
    CorXy:
    C Brady Bunch? Anyone?

    Clearly the problem with Corey was the "e" in his name. We Corys are much more knowledgeable and efficient.

    So CorXy must be how it's spelled in l337, eh?

  • (cs) in reply to Xaox
    Xaox:
    I've always liked "ess-cue-ell", here's why:

    CFO - "$accountingSystemVendor says we need a 'MS-sequal' server. Why do we need another server if we already have one?"

    How does saying "ess cue ell" change the CFO's understanding of the word "server"?

  • dabigjhall (unregistered) in reply to SnapShot

    Clearly, the only correct answer is C waffle.

    Mmmm....waffles....

  • (cs)

    It's pronounced C-durIdon'treadthethreadbeforeposting.

  • Reader X (unregistered) in reply to eekee
    eekee:
    Okay, this isn't precisely relevant to this article, but I've got to say it some time. The very fact that # even could be described as a pound sign is a huge WTF to me! As far as I can tell, the only way it got that name was via ancient 7-bit ascii printers, which sometimes substituted the pound sign for the hash character. How it could have spread from that to such widespread usage, I don't know, unless perhaps it was an acceptable substitute for the true pound sign for a long time before that. Still seems a case of extreme carelessness on the part of a great many people for # to aquire the name "pound sign".

    was used for pound back in the days when the apothecary wrote out your order in longhand with a pencil on a scrap of paper.

  • Keith (unregistered)

    OK, this is a pound sign -> £ This is a hash sign -> # This is a sharp sign -> ♯ (Unicode U+266F)

    .. the sharp sign isn't supported by all fonts so you'll probably get a block or something there.

  • Paolo G (unregistered) in reply to Jim
    Jim:
    1 - If you have only ever really learned from books, you may be very proficient, but wouldn't know the difference between C-Sharp or C-Pound.

    Come on, any decent book on C# is going to explain in the introduction how to pronounce it.

    Here's a question... what do American's call "£"? That is the pound sign (and was the pound sign long before the US was even a twinkle in the Founding Fathers' eyes...).

  • (cs) in reply to eekee
    eekee:
    Still seems a case of extreme carelessness on the part of a great many people for # to aquire the name "pound sign".

    According to wikipedia, the "pound sign" is referring to the lb pounds, not the GBP pounds.

  • Paolo G (unregistered) in reply to Paolo G
    Paolo G:
    what do American's call "£"

    Oops... always proofread before posting... that should be "Americans", of course.

  • (cs) in reply to eekee
    eekee:
    Okay, this isn't precisely relevant to this article, but I've got to say it some time. The very fact that # even could be described as a pound sign is a huge WTF to me! As far as I can tell, the only way it got that name was via ancient 7-bit ascii printers, which sometimes substituted the pound sign for the hash character. How it could have spread from that to such widespread usage, I don't know, unless perhaps it was an acceptable substitute for the true pound sign for a long time before that. Still seems a case of extreme carelessness on the part of a great many people for # to aquire the name "pound sign".

    Similarly, the # was used for pounds weight, not pounds sterling, on bills of lading, invoices and so on. I've never known it to be used for money, though I have seen keyboards with the sterling sign at shift-3, rather than the hash.

  • Paolo G (unregistered) in reply to pscs
    pscs:
    eekee:
    Still seems a case of extreme carelessness on the part of a great many people for # to aquire the name "pound sign".

    According to wikipedia, the "pound sign" is referring to the lb pounds, not the GBP pounds.

    Not so, unless someone has edited it since you posted:

    "It is never called the pound sign in the UK, where that term always denotes the symbol for pounds sterling (£) rather than that for pounds weight (lb)."

  • Divide By Zero (unregistered)

    This site needs more pictures like the hot Irish girl.

  • Pope (unregistered) in reply to James Bender
    James Bender:
    OK, I'm calling BS on this one.

    And I'm going to disagree with you. At my first job, they hired people that got fired from the previous job of answering phones, and every one of those tools had a similar sob story. A large company in the area had a LOT of layoffs and we got a lot of "programmers." I wasn't in the interview process, but I can imagine the questions a little like this, "Have you seen a computer before? [...] What is a 'mouse'?" I say that because the other 2 good programmers and I put in a great deal of extra work on our hands putting out fires, mentoring and just straight doing other people's work, then when they FINALLY strolled out at 4:35 - "I hope the boss doesn't see me leave early" - we could actually get some work done.

    But, we needed people. Our company was growing at a rate that we couldn't sustain and the answer was to put more people in the mix. I've heard that even to this day management views the title of Programmer as slightly more experienced than Janitor, concerning computers. Even after they lost half of their business from several outages and other crises.

    Out. 01001001001000000110110001101111011101100110010100100000011000100110000101100011011011110110111000101110

  • (cs) in reply to Paolo G
    Paolo G:
    Here's a question... what do American's call "£"? *That* is the pound sign (and was the pound sign long before the US was even a twinkle in the Founding Fathers' eyes...).
    We don't call it anything. We don't use it. What do you call this? $

    Examples of its use: $100 $get(chkApproval); Dim SomeString$ $accountingSystemVendor

  • jpk (unregistered) in reply to James Bender

    That's bull sharp, right?

  • (cs)

    God I hope "C tic-tac-toe" doesn't become a meme.

  • ddd (unregistered) in reply to SnapShot

    It's C-hurdle

    Captcha: He pointed his wand at his vile standrads-mangling enemy, and yelled "conventio!"

  • Cope with IT (unregistered) in reply to SnapShot

    C batten fence

  • masonReloaded (unregistered) in reply to McGuffin

    Doesn't matter, both are widely used and "ess-cue-ell" is the 'official pronunciation':

    "SQL was adopted as a standard by ANSI in 1986 and ISO in 1987. In the original SQL standard, ANSI declared that the official pronunciation for SQL is "es queue el". However, many English-speaking database professionals still use the nonstandard pronunciation /ˈsiːkwəl/ (like the word "sequel")"

  • Manu (unregistered)

    That's what SHE said !

  • Yawarakai (unregistered) in reply to SnapShot

    C tic-tac-toe board!

  • T (unregistered) in reply to SnapShot

    I thought it was C tic-tac-toe

  • (cs) in reply to SnapShot
    SnapShot:
    So which is it, C Sharp, C pound, C hash, C number sign or C octothorp?

    I call it D flat.

  • tezoatlipoca (unregistered)

    C-grid!

  • notJoeKing (unregistered) in reply to Kederaji
    Kederaji:
    It's pronounced C-durIdon'treadthethreadbeforeposting.

    This made me LOL... has anyone mentioned C-tictactoe or C-plusplusplusplus yet? Cause I think I'm hilareous and I need to post those RIGHT AWAY without seeing if someone beat me to it!!!!

  • Jimmy L (unregistered)

    We should commend Brice for leaving (I'm assuming he left voluntarily). That's like walking into a McDonald's and hiring the first asshole you see... Just make sure he has a custody hearing and other real-life problems.

    WTF: Why couldn't that guy just go get a job at McDonald's like a real man would?

    If you're a drudge fan: drudgetracker.com

  • A Gould (unregistered) in reply to Simetrical
    Simetrical:
    "I think I have some work he can do" sounded like a setup for a non-WTFy ending (from the company's point of view). I thought the next part was going to say how he was the new janitor or something. But no, we're dropped straight to the hiring with no explanation. Didn't the boss have some reason not to interview the next guy? Was there a next guy?
    James Bender:
    OK, I'm calling BS on this one.

    I buy it - it's amazing how "we only hire the right person" turns into "we need a body". They tend to forget that "we can train them" requires that the person is trainable for the job. Also, you need the extra hours required for existing staff to train the new staff.

    It's been a year since our last "need a guy" left, and we're still finding little landmines in the filing...

    (For the original story, I had him pegged for assistant myself. Assistant manager, I mean. :)

  • WPlinge (unregistered)

    Anything except C-sharp simply for having the temerity to attempt inflicting that on people.

  • mathew (unregistered) in reply to SnapShot

    I deliberately call it C hash, because it's a crude hash of C and Java.

  • Mike (unregistered)

    Since it is spelled/typed: "C#", it can't be called C "sharp" because there's no "sharp" key on any computer keyboards.... there's a symbol that looks similar to a sharp sign but if it were a sharp sign, then keyboards would have flat signs and natural signs too.

    So, it has to be anything but "C sharp".

  • MarkLD (unregistered)

    If MS had wanted to call it "C Pound", surely they would have called if C£. i.e. using a British currency symbol.

    So how did Americans get to pronounce the "hash symbol" as "pound" anyway?

    Whenever I see it used in American stuff, it seems to mean "number", as in "Issue #1"...

    Anyway, it's clearly derived from C++ with an extra ++. So if you didn't call it "C Sharp" it would have to be "C plus plus plus plus".

    How about "C plus fours"?

  • Ren (unregistered)

    I used to call it C-swastika.

    I wonder why I never got that job as a java+c#-developer...

  • Xorandnotor (unregistered) in reply to SnapShot

    Octothorpe? First time I hear that one. I love it.

  • Gamma (unregistered)

    I suggest firing the person who interviewed and hired the boss.

  • m (unregistered)

    So what is it?

    The Daily WTF, or Worse Than Failure?

    Remember... if you HESITATE for even a SPLIT SECOND, Alex will destroy you. And then ask you to spell Papadimoulis.

  • Harsh Responder (unregistered) in reply to Andy Goth
    Andy Goth:
    Seriously, it took me a couple years to figure out that C# really is pronounced "C-sharp". I had assumed "C-pound" on account of "C-sharp" being too punny and already in use for several projects.

    I can't figure out if that disqualifies me from commenting here or makes me a valued asset to the WTF community.

    Both. We always need someone or something to comment on.

  • m (unregistered)

    Is it C sharp or C pound?

    'true'.

  • Flashback (unregistered)

    I believe this story. Just reading it gave me a flashback to when I was hiring for the programming team I managed. The big boss decided to come for the interview and nearly hired a guy with next to no programming experience.

    I told the big boss hiring the guy was a huge mistake; the big boss (by a miracle of God?) agreed to give him a project on a consulting basis instead of hiring the guy.

    After the guy missed two appointments to discuss the project; no call, no show, the boss finally said, "Good thing we didn't hire that guy, huh?"

    I didn't care that the boss was an idiot. I was just relieved that it only took two missed phone calls instead of four weeks of training.

  • Moo (unregistered) in reply to SnapShot

    D-flat

  • Dave (unregistered) in reply to SnapShot

    It's pronounced C-sharp.

  • Tei (unregistered)

    Here in spain is "C-almohadilla", hence back in english is C-pillow. Good nights guyszzzZZZZ!

  • (cs) in reply to DOA
    DOA:
    ...we're all a little bit wiser. And I keep my eye on him.

    My favourite quote is a signature phrase from the Cold War days -- "Trust, but verify." Apparently Ronald Reagan used to say it a lot.

    I have found it to be an immensely useful life motto.

  • Peers (unregistered) in reply to SnapShot

    C Tic-Tac-Toe, I thought...

  • Alcari (unregistered) in reply to Rootbeer
    Rootbeer:
    It would be pretty hard to find a book on C# that doesn't explain in the preface (if not on the jacket) that the language's name is pronounced "C sharp".

    You would be hard pressed to find anyone who reads the preface of coding books.

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