Talk:TeX

Pronunciation of TeX

The pronunciation help is wrong. please cf. http://www.ling.hf.ntnu.no/ipa/full/ipachart_cons_pulm_fbmp3.html TeX derives from Greek technê and that is NOT pronounced with an IPA [x] or ['chi'] but with the fortis palatal fricative - IPA ["c with a diacritical ' at its bottom"]. So TeX is not pronounced like 'loch' or GER 'Bach' but like GER 'mich' or GER 'Technik'.

Knuth writes in the TeXbook: "It's the `ch' sound in Scottish words like loch or German words like ach; it's a Spanish `j' and a Russian `kh'." I understand this as a clear description of [x], not [ç]. Perhaps Knuth belongs to the 99% majority of people who never heard about palatalization in Greek. --EJ 13:50, 24 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Update: I just checked The Details of Modern Greek Phonetics and Phonology. Although it discusses Greek palatalization in depth, it nowhere suggests that consonants are palatalized after a front vowel, or when separated from the following front vowel by another consonant. Indeed, examples of velars in such a position show them unpalatalized: έχω [`εxo], γεγονός [ʝεγon`os], λίγο [ʎ`iγo], γυναίκα [ʝin`εka], προσεκτικά [prosεktik`a], κλείνω [kʎ`ino]. Thus, AFAICS, there is not a single reason why TeX should be pronounced with [ç]. Can someone who is both native Greek and a trained phonetician confirm that τεχνη is pronounced [tεxɲi]? --EJ 15:34, 24 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Surely the question is not how it might be pronounced in Modern Greek (Ancient Greek would in any case have been different), but how it's pronounced in English, on which Knuth is surely something of an authority. By the way I've converted the spelling guide to IPA, which is the Wikipedia standard, as well as being less ugly to look at adn probably less confusing. --rossb 19:56, 26 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I agree. The point was that even if someone disagrees with this viewpoint (such as, apparently, the anonymous first poster), it makes no sense to use an ich-laut.

BTW, I reverted the change you did in the sentence "The name is properly typeset ...", it was wrong. TeX is properly typeset either with a lowered capital "E" (preferred), or normal lowercase "e", but not with lowered lowercase "e". --EJ 13:34, 1 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Just to be clear here, are we talking about the Voiceless uvular fricative or the Voiceless velar fricative? --213.112.81.180 15:56, 15 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Velar. The question was whether it is velar or palatal. EJ 09:05, 17 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

But German ach-laut certainly can be uvular. Is that the only example in Knuth's list that can be [χ] instead of [x]? --213.112.81.40 14:04, 17 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Hmm, I see. Russian [x] is definitely not velar. As for Spanish and Scottish (i.e., any of the at least 3 different languages or language varieties which could have been meant by this adjective), I don't know the languages myself, but all descriptions of their phonetics I've seen agree on [x], the uvular fricative [χ] not being even mentioned.

The discussion starts to get funny, I think it is time to use some common sense. There's no indication whatsoever that Knuth is a trained phonetician, and that he is aware of the differences between the various fricatives located near velum. In any case, the description he gives in TeXbook is not intended as an exact phonetical definition, but to give general (mostly North American) public a clue that the name is not to be pronounced [tɛk]. Inferring anything more from the description is of dubious value. --EJ 13:18, 18 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

So I guess the conclusion is that you can use either one, and Knuth didn't make the distinction. --213.112.81.22 18:07, 18 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

You can of course use whatever you want, as usual. It's just that the article should indicate some reasonable default pronunciation. --EJ 10:21, 19 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Ilumination of spelling

What do people think of adding a picture that illustrates the "spelling" of TeX, similar to the one at the beginning of the LaTeX article? –Matt 09:56, 13 Jun 2004 (UTC)

I like the lion better :) Pity the thumbnailer makes it so faint... anyone know how to manipulate the original to fix that? --Lupin 10:43, 13 Jun 2004 (UTC)

You could simply ask the copyright holder of the image (Oneiros). It would have been nice if I'd been asked before the inclusion of the image here anyway. :-( --Oneiros 13:57, 2005 Apr 6 (UTC)

Please avoid using the TeX logo when you cannot print it properly as in HTML. If you want to have the logo, upload a bitmap. – Torsten Bronger 12:18, 18 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Lovely. But it's not a logo, it's the properly formatted form of its name (comme "iTunes", not "ITunes" or "Itunes" or something else). Reinstated. --James F. (talk) 14:34, 18 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Vertical displacement is not part of orthography. Moreover it looks ugly in many browser configurations and inserts an enlarged line skip. All of this is unnecessary. Finally, in his book "Digital Typography" Knuth himself insists on a thorough positioning of the logo letters according to the current typeface. This is obviously not at all possible in HTML. – Torsten Bronger 08:54, 19 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Moreover, the current form in the article is really weird: The last letter seems to have been typed as a Greek letter, but the first two haven't. Anyway, if no real reason against it is given, I'll switch back to the plain version in the article. – Torsten Bronger 23:56, 20 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Example section concerns

I am not too convinced about the section TeX#TeX examples. Do we really want to write this section as a tutorial, with the "hello" code, the details of commands to type to compile the source, etc ? I prefer the way the MetaPost article does it: provide one relatively complex source code, along with the result it produces when compiled. Opinions? --Schutz 01:04, 22 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I think that's a good idea. – Torsten Bronger 17:31, 22 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Seconded. <disclaimer> I wrote MetaPost. 8-) </disclaimer> Maybe two similar short documents, one plain TeX, one LaTeX with the sample output from one or both of them. There are quite a few short example documents around (e.g. Lamport's sample.tex or others from a TeX distribution or off the web) that could be used for inspiration -- preferably giving a single small page (e.g. A5 paper). Not every feature of TeX/LaTeX needs to be included- just enough to demonstrate the principles and maybe the differences between plain & La. --Andrew Kepert 08:23, 7 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I have had a first go at a LaTeX version. It is A4, but 12pt. See User:AndrewKepert/TeX sample. --Andrew Kepert 10:04, 7 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Licence

To 83.135.160.19: TeX is not in public domain, it is copyrighted by Knuth. Here is the licence notice:

% This program is copyright (C) 1982 by D. E. Knuth; all rights are reserved. 
% Copying of this file is authorized only if (1) you are D. E. Knuth, or if
% (2) you make absolutely no changes to your copy. (The WEB system provides
% for alterations via an auxiliary file; the master file should stay intact.)
% See Appendix H of the WEB manual for hints on how to install this program.
% And see Appendix A of the TRIP manual for details about how to validate it.

% TeX is a trademark of the American Mathematical Society.
% METAFONT is a trademark of Addison-Wesley Publishing Company.

--EJ 10:02, 20 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Babel

I've added TeX to the Wikipedia:Babel project. Feel free to put it in your babelbox! --Smjg 12:36, 28 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Compatible Versions

It seems like fpTeX no longer exists. After some poking about, I found that the author has changed his project to XemTeX, rolling Xemacs and TeX into one package. But I am unsure of the status of the project, as it seems to have hopped between various hosts. 165.155.128.134 14:26, 3 November 2005 (UTC) Er, that was me - stupid proxies broke my login. Skomae 14:28, 3 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]