Document how cuDF is pronounced

[pentschev]

Description

Document in README.md and sphinx landing pages how cuDF is pronounced.

It is known people may pronounce cuDF in ways that aren't how it was conceived, such as "see-you-dee-ef". The correct way to pronounce is not documented anywhere so people who have never heard it from someone knowledgeable aren't able to know for sure, and thus this should be clearly documented.

Checklist

• I am familiar with the Contributing Guidelines.
• New or existing tests cover these changes.
• The documentation is up to date with these changes.

[pentschev]

I'm not entirely sure myself what is the right way to spell the pronounciation. I've chosen cuh-dee-ef because it seems closest to me, but I think other ways may be the correct choice instead:

• "cuh": maybe only "cu"
• "ef": maybe "eff" or "af" or "aff"

Hopefully someone can correct here if there's a better way to spell it.

[pentschev]

And also please let me know if there are more places where this should be documented.

[davidwendt]

I think the correct notation may be kw - di - ef since I believe it to be close to saying the letters Q D F

[davidwendt]

It their a pronunciation syntax for CUDA? I would take the first syllable from that.

[bdice]

I would skip the pronunciation guide on the dask-cudf library. I think we can just do it for the main cuDF README. Also dask isn’t the same as desk in my pronunciation but I’m not enough of an expert to know how to write that word pronunciation properly.

[pentschev]

I would skip the pronunciation guide on the dask-cudf library. I think we can just do it for the main cuDF README.

I wasn't sure if we should do it here either but decided in favor of this for the cases where people may end up directly here when looking to accelerate dataframes with Dask on the GPU.

Also dask isn’t the same as desk in my pronunciation but I’m not enough of an expert to know how to write that word pronunciation properly.

From community meetings I've joined, "desk" is definitely more prevalent.

[bdice]

...Doesn't dask rhyme with task or mask, and not desk (or the first syllable of "pesky")? I think that dask is a self-explanatory pronunciation and I don't see a way to explain the pronunciation better than the word "dask" itself.

[pentschev]

I gotta be honest and I always thought "mask", "task" and "desk" sounded the same (with the exception of the first letter, of course), then I went on to listen to them and can now grasp the (to me, subtle) difference. I agree with you that "dask" sounds like "dask" and not "desk".

With that said I'd say we can update here and say it's pronounced "dask-KOO-dee-eff". Once again, my primary purpose is to make sure people who land here as opposed to looking at cuDF by itself also know how to pronounce cuDF, Dask pronunciation was added just for completeness. If you still think we should remove it I can do that, but personally I feel there's a benefit to have it here too.

[pentschev]

I think the correct notation may be kw - di - ef since I believe it to be close to saying the letters Q D F

I have to disagree with the kw part, I'm pretty sure CUDA is pronounced "koo-da" (already using @bdice 's suggestion, which I now agree with), you can listen to Jensen or anybody else at NVIDIA saying it.

Also with kw-di-ef it seems like you're trying to come closer to how that would be written in IPA format, and although I think this has a very precise definition and is certainly a more consistent approach, I don't think the average person would know how to read/pronounce that (I know I wouldn't without researching first) and thus it would defeat the purpose of actually describing how to pronounce it in the first place, therefore I think we should try writing an "english pronunciation", or both "english pronunciation" + IPA, but not skip the english one. As an example, if kw

It their a pronunciation syntax for CUDA? I would take the first syllable from that.

The closest public thing I found is this forum discussion from 2007, but there are no official answers so I wouldn't blindly trust it.

[bdice]

It their a pronunciation syntax for CUDA? I would take the first syllable from that.

This is a great question. From your other comment, it sounded like there was a Q sound. I don’t pronounce CUDA with a Q sound, but some people do (I think Q is not the official pronunciation though). It turns out that “cu” making a koo sound is fairly rare. Cuckoo, cupola, and cuprous (to do with copper) are the examples I can find.

[bdice]

Small request: we have a dash in KOO-dee-eff but not the other pronunciation guides (KOO dee-eff). Should we remove it here, or add it in the other two? I'm fine with either option.

[pentschev]

Added the dashes to the others, I think it makes sense to have them since they're the same word.

[pentschev]

@bdice @davidwendt @ttnghia all comments so far have been addressed, are there anything else or are you good if we merge it?

[bdice]

/merge