How do you pronouce the - in terminal/command line use?

[Lost In Cyberia]

Hey everyone, new to the forums/boards. Been a linux user for about a year now, and feel as though i've only scratched the minuest surface of the elegant creature that is Linux. So my first question is something less serious, but something that's picqued my curiousity since my first hak5 episode.. Darren and Shannon pronouce the - symbol as tack. Example: ls -al or ls --help. They say 'tack or tack,tack' respectively. I've always pronouced it as dash, but yet others refer to it as 'minus'. What say you all? how do you refer to this very small, but yet vastly important symbol of the command line?

[telot]

As a kid, I always said it as hyphen, as my first name is hypenated, I was trained young. In highschool (when I started getting into linux in a meaningful way) it somehow got morphed into 'dash'. Now that I'm a sysadmin, and avid fan of hak5, I changed it to 'tack'. Really its just lazyness - as I progress more and more into linux I get lazier and lazier (my mentor taught me that the best sysadmins are the laziest sysadmins). tack is just easier to say, and not everyone understands it, so its efficient and l33t :D

telot

Edited May 26, 2013 by telot

[Pwnd2Pwnr]

I grew up calling it a 'tack'.

[logicalconfusion]

Its all really a matter of preference. Mr. Goatee seems to think motorcycling is rad. Do you? Do you pronouce either by emphasizing the the first part of the word (EYE-ther) or do you say either? Tack reminds of the of a verb. Its kind of like saying I like Sunny Leone so much that I wana tack her behind.

[logicalconfusion]

thats like asking whats funnier dead give away or 'cause I got a Hi

[digip]

Its a minus sign, your argument is invalid (j/k)

Its usually called a tack in *nix world for the command line just to people know to prefix the command with a dash, but not all programs require command switches, and some, don't use - at all, while others use /, and others spell it out like so for example:

./programname command="variable" | command="variable"

wget for example uses a combination of - -- and command="variable" or --command="variable"

Just depends on who wrote the program and what the requirements are for script arguments, or commonly referred to command switches, but I agree, tack is usually the most common term I've heard used when verbally telling someone commands to type in and you want them to use a - to prefix a variable or command switch, its just kind of universally known among CLI junkies.

Edited May 29, 2013 by digip

[Pwnd2Pwnr]

I googled sunny leone... lmao

[Lost In Cyberia]

sunny leone = maximum tackage... but yes, lets turn this conversation away from that direction... thanks for the responses! I think I'll start referring to it as tack as well

[Sitwon]

"Tack" is also a nautical term. Actually, two nautical terms, one a noun and the other a verb. It's either the leading edge of the sail, or the act of sailing into the wind.

[newbi3]

Durring the Linux+ curriculum it was called a "dash". However they did try to ease people into the Linux world by calling "etc" e.t.c.. I've kind of come up with my own method and it goes like this:

if the - is not in the middle of two words its a tac (arp-scan *TAC*I eth0) if it is in the middle of two words its a dash (apt*DASH*get).

[digip]

"Tack" is also a nautical term. Actually, two nautical terms, one a noun and the other a verb. It's either the leading edge of the sail, or the act of sailing into the wind.

its also something you step on while trying to hang posters and drop one, and hurts like a son of a bitch...

[Lost In Cyberia]

its also something you step on while trying to hang posters and drop one, and hurts like a son of a bitch...

This is the one I"m more familiar with. And Newbi3, how was the Linux+? I'm about to take it this June?