The notoriety of Coq's name is, by a long, long way, the most embarrassing message board trope on HN. For years, you couldn't run a story about Coq --- a genuinely interesting and important piece of software --- on the front page without attracting sophomoric comments about a (bad) English transliteration? is that the word? of the name.
So like 4 years ago they renamed it, literally for this reason, which is embarrassing all on its own, and that's still not enough to get HN to stop talking about it.
I rarely do this, because the moderators really don't want anybody doing it, but I'll say out loud this time: I flagged this post. Just leave them alone.
As a non-anglophone myself, I hate the fact that we have given one language so much power to dictate how every other country and language should name things. You will never find an American company changing the name of their product in the US because it sounds naughty in French. Yet here we are, a group of francophones feeling pressure to change their product's name for anglophones' sake.
The author knew fine that it was a knob joke (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26743882). In this specific case, play stupid games, get stupid prizes; no-one is asking Le Coq Sportif to rebrand or your local bistro to stop serving coq au vin.
Well yes, HN people being childish about genitalia is one thing, but ridiculous French naming schemes are another. In the french finite element package code_aster there were 2 different variables named coq_massif and massif_coq, which in the context of finite element translates to "solid beam", but seriously? I realize I'm on thin ice, dabbling in national stereotypes, but in my experience French software developers absolutely suck at naming things.
Party pooper. We have so few opportunities to be silly on HN. Plus it’s good advertisement for what would otherwise be an obscure piece of software. You can’t deny it would be much less known.
I’m not saying it was a good idea, just an oddity. There was no need to curb stomp it with a public declaration of nuisance.
Oh well. Hey, thanks for the whiskey slap. I still think about it fondly.
standup> My coq experiments are promising, but it feels a little harder than it should be, and I'm worried it'll be too slow to deliver without some training and long practice sessions.
Because U.S. English is everything, and people want it that way, and any concern about cultural imperialism that would immediately be brought up in any other context magically doesn’t apply when Americans could possibly be offended. Everyone else has to adapt, no matter their mother tongue.
Meanwhile the world’s most common VCS’s name is literally an abuse (not a misspelling of one), but only outside the US so nobody cares.
Practically speaking there's no reason not to centralize on the particulars of one language while the rest are in the increasingly accelerated process of dying out. Language barriers help nobody. Though it is a shame to rename this, the world needs more whimsy and penises are funny.
25 comments
(35 points, 47 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38779480
(61 points, 64 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41180007
So like 4 years ago they renamed it, literally for this reason, which is embarrassing all on its own, and that's still not enough to get HN to stop talking about it.
I rarely do this, because the moderators really don't want anybody doing it, but I'll say out loud this time: I flagged this post. Just leave them alone.
I’m not saying it was a good idea, just an oddity. There was no need to curb stomp it with a public declaration of nuisance.
Oh well. Hey, thanks for the whiskey slap. I still think about it fondly.
"Yeah I'm playing with my Coq to try and get it working again"
Meanwhile the world’s most common VCS’s name is literally an abuse (not a misspelling of one), but only outside the US so nobody cares.