When I was a student a few decades ago, everybody I knew pronounced it as “vee-eye”. Then in the late nineties / early aughts, I heard the first people pronounced it as “vie” in a different city I had found employment in. It sounded odd to me, and it seemed to come from people who in fact didn’t use it much. But the pronounciation I was used to still applied, mostly.
Nowadays, I almost never talk about VI to anyone anymore, nor do I hear anyone say the name. It’s become mostly a typed thing for me. But - coincidence? - this week I heard three people talk about it (younger, non VI users) and they all said “vie”.
And now I’m watching this video from the reasonably famous and definitely not young and not VI newbie NCommander and he too says “vie” in the video.
I’m beginning to worry that I’m the one who’s been saying it wrong all this time because of my misguided college buddies and teachers way back when 🙂
So I’m curious: how do YOU say it? VEE-EYE or VIE?
six
lol
Vee-eye. That’s the historically correct way :)
Vee Eye because ed is pronounced Eee Dee.
How weird. I’ve always said “Ed” - like the name 🙂
Yeah, and not like erectile dysfunction.
Plus it rhymes with sed (like said).
That would’ve made 209 friendlier.
Jif
@ExtremeDullard vee eye
“Vee”
“ee-maks”
Shoo! Out you go!
“How do I quit the editor”
I call it vim, because Vee Eye is typically an alias of vim to begin with, and if you’ve ever actually used Vee Eye, you’d throw your computer out the window. 😁
if you’ve ever actually used Vee Eye, you’d throw your computer out the window
I have used vanilla VI on real Unices (i.e. pre-Linux and pre-Minix). In fact, that’s the VI I learned VI with.
The first “better VI” I used was Elvis. Then VIM of course. But here’s the thing: even decades later, I still consider their extended features niceties rather than essentials. In other words, I’m still very happy to run vanilla VI to this day. The only thing from VI of yore I can’t really stand anymore is HJKL: I kind of need the arrows, and the ability to move in edit mode.
I think I say “vie” in my head but “vee-eye” out loud because it’s less ambiguous / easier to hear.
I didn’t look at what the community the post was from and was very confused for a moment as to why any one would make such a fuss about how to best pronounce the Roman numeral 6 like letters, not like a number.
Vi, vie, voe, vim. I will not explain further.
Vie, but have heard vee-eye as well.
vi
