Z:gnu-www-ja-rms-nyu-2001-transcript--33e3b6-So I looked for a recursive ac/en

So I looked for a recursive acronym for Something is not Unix. And I tried all 26 letters, and discovered that none of them was a word. [Laughter] Hmm, try another way. I made a contraction. That way I could have a three-letter acronym, for Something's not Unix. And I tried letters, and I came across the word &ldquo;GNU&rdquo; &mdash; the word &ldquo;GNU&rdquo; is the funniest word in the English language. [Laughter] That was it. Of course, the reason it's funny is that according to the dictionary, it's pronounced &ldquo;new&rdquo;. You see? And so that's why people use it for a lot of wordplay. Let me tell you, this is the name of an animal that lives in Africa. And the African pronunciation had a click sound in it. [Laughter] Maybe still does. And so, the European colonists, when they got there, they didn't bother learning to say this click sound. So they just left it out, and they wrote a &ldquo;G&rdquo; which meant &ldquo;there's another sound that's supposed to be here which we are not pronouncing.&rdquo; [Laughter] So, tonight I'm leaving for South Africa, and I have begged them, I hope they're going to find somebody who can teach me to pronounce click sounds, [Laughter] so that I'll know how to pronounce GNU the correct way, when it's the animal.