The company has an account on Bilibili[0], where its Chinese name is specified as 鲸鲮. 鲸, romanised as Jing, means "whales" (the animal). So JingOS would be "WhaleOS".

(鲮, romanised as Ling, is another water animal known as "mud carp".)

[https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1Za4y1n7pY]

While I agree it's probably not intentional the word is pretty common in British English.

I did know what jingoism is, but only barely, and mostly from history lessons and didn't think about it at all looking at the OS name.

I agree that is still used, but arguably in very specialized contexts, and has many better and less idiomatic alternatives that make it a poor choice in many publication, helping it become rarer.

I expect a lot of concept names not directly bound to the concept itself to slowly disappear, the same way calling dinnerware "china" won't stand for a lot more generations I think.

I think it could very much find its place repurposed within a capitalist context to describe the behaviour of big tech companies.

Obviously "pretty common" is, just like "obscure", completely subjective. I consider it obscure, but all I can say from looking it up is that at least according to Google Ngram, it's about 1/10 as common as "patriotism", which is saying something as that's been a declining word for a century. It's less common than "chauvinism", "sectarianism" and "xenophobia". In fact, tripling the popularity of "jingoism" still wouldn't make it as popular as any of those. It also peaked in the early 1900s and has since been on a low plateu, which again, I consider a marker of obscurity.

To me the fact that Ngram shows the word “patriotism” on the decline throws doubt on using it for any measure like this. Within the US “patriotism” is used very commonly. It leads me to wonder whether Ngram leans too heavily on scientific or academic literature and not on the words that people actually use in everyday conversation.

Does Ngram scan social media, TV or (to a lesser extent) newspapers? If not I’m dubious about the utility here.

Unless there's a Google Ngram distinct from the Google Books Ngram Viewer https://books.google.com/ngrams/ , their statistics are entirely based on material available in Google Books, which might include some newspapers, but probably not social media or TV.

You can’t open an issue of The Economist without seeing Trump or some dictator being accused of jingoism.

And how common is it to be a reader of The Economist?

Extremely common, it’s the standard magazine for economics and politics.

Maybe, but it's not "extremely common" to read any high-brow publications on politics and economics.

Well, it’s used frequently in counties that used to be part of the British Empire it appears. Australians use it all the time.

I'm a Brit, pushing 40. I'm educated to degree level (1st class, FWIW), and very well read (including the venerable Pratchett, though I don't think I have read Jingo yet).

I think I heard the word "jingoism" for the first time ever around 5 years ago. It is not a word one hears very often, and it certainly didn't come to mind from "JingOS".

If you often read high-brow political publications you may come across "jingoism" on the daily, but that is obviously not a huge cross-section of the public.

TBH, kind of bizarre how strongly this jingoism thing is being pushed in this thread.

I have used English as my daily working language in software development for over 20 years and had never heard it before.

Well, we don't discuss a lot of politics in international teams, that's a taboo topic especially when working with Chinese colleagues. And for Trump we have only one word, that I don't want to repeat here.

The English needed to discuss software is pretty limited.

> I highly doubt they named it after some obscure English expression.

It's not that obscure if a nonnative speaker's first reaction is to think "why would anyone want to call a distro by that name"?

It doesn't matter that there is a perfectly reasonable alternative motivation for it ... It's just, you'll never find me wanting to be heard saying "I think you should use jingos!"[1]

Interestingly, it turns out, someone else thought it would be a good brand name too.[2] So you are not alone.

[1]: https://www.bennetyee.org/http_webster.cgi?isindex=jingo&met... [2]: https://buyjingos.com/

It's odd though how names just stick. IPad is the ugliest of names and so are most of the other IPrefixed names. I get some of these choices were to break from dictionary words, but I find them vile! In my mind I placate by saying info-pad.

My initial allergy does fade over time. That's advertising/normalisation for you.

Patio Cola.

They are also based in BeiJING（北京）where Jing (京) can be taken to mean capital.

Not very obscure, but sure.

Why isn’t it obscure? Because you know it?

I mean Terry Pratchett (very popular English language author) wrote a book literally called Jingo

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jingo_(novel)

It's not a word you'd hear every day but it's a word I'd bet on the majority of genuinely literate people to understand.

The HN filter bubble truly can be a staggering thing sometimes. I never knew I wasn't genuinely literate, but you learn something every day.

They said that the majority of genuinely literate people will know it, that doesn't say anything about you.

It's still staggeringly elitist and unaware to assume that "genuinely" literate people (whatever that means) should not only know of Pratchett but also know his entire bibliography by heart. While it may come to a shock for English speakers from the UK and the US, not everyone that speaks English are American or British, and may not be primarily interested in literature from those countries.

Genuinely literate people mostly know Pratchett, it's a extremely well known author consistently topping charts whose books are available in nearly every language of the world, very popular in Russia as well as Finland as well as Czechia and elsewhere. It shocks me (a Czech person) you'd claim otherwise, some of his books are actually required reading here - we read foreign literature just as much as local. It never struck me as elitist, this is pure merit - you're making it about nations but it's just about Pratchett being that good.

Looked up that book on two different online stores in Sweden cdon and bokus. On both of them the book had zero reviews. Are swedish people not literate?

How many books at all have reviews on Bokus? Never seen any.

Not that I’d want to put Pratchett in the literary canon, just making a point about Bokus.

Yeah bokus is kind of weird. I meant adlibris, my bad

I am very sure Pratchett is well known even in Sweden. What are the reviews for Romeo and Juliet? And again - not knowing Pratchett doesn't say that one isn't literate. The statement is "most genuinely literate people will know Pratchett". Stop being so defensive for nothing, nobody is attacking your intellect here...

My bad, meant adlibris not bokus. Bokus has 3 reviews on it. But here's the difference on adlibris.

https://www.adlibris.com/se/bok/romeo-and-juliet-97804862755...

https://www.adlibris.com/se/bok/jingo-9781473200258

Besides not really sure how I am being "so defensive"? I made one comment agreeing with somebody

> Are swedish people not literate?

You're turning my statement around and perceive it as if I was suggesting Swedish people are not literate. That's not what I'm saying yet you're defending the Swedes.

You made a broad statement and I used it to ask a broad question

> It's still staggeringly elitist and unaware to assume that "genuinely" literate people (whatever that means) should not only know of Pratchett

The comment you're referring to didn't say that, or suggest it. So this is one red flag for your "genuine" literacy :)

Your assertion about what a majority of literate people know is almost surely false.

If it's relevant my cat is name Jingo.

Wanted to name mine Greebo but was over-ruled.

In hindsight probably a good idea, not a self-fulfilling prophecy you'd want.

I heard the word throughout my (American) upbringing - it might not be used as much internationally but it's definitely not obscure by any stretch.

I think it might be used more in places that have history with European (maybe just British?) Colonialism.

It’s not that it’s obscure because you do not know it, that’s for certain.