No need to imagine, "bit" is pronounced in French exactly like "bite", which means basically the same thing as "cock".
> How fun would it be when you told someone "we use Penis where I work to implement our AwesomeSoftware™?
You get used to it. Talking about "cock twiddling" sounds strange at first, and is annoying. But since we're French we can't really hope that this will change anytime soon.
Anyways, I'm all for changing the name, but hope we can keep the French origin. "LPC" for "Le Prouveur Coq" is a good idea https://github.com/coq/coq/wiki/Alternative-names.
What about the word bite (la bite) in french? Are we supposed to remove the word bit from the English language because it sounds similar to the french word for penis?
There is always going to be strange overlaps when it comes to different languages.
Coq is a bad name.
It's those that inherited the culture of the puritans they've sent away that make a fuss about it (or some words on tv or make a huge deal about a SuperBowl nip slip).
There are many similar stories about English words sounding like profanity when (badly) pronounced in Chinese.
They're bad for branding and brands avoid them.
Now, I like "Coq" and the story about the cheeky French people trying to one up anglophones, but that's not really enough to make it a good name.
Then again I recall some people calling a compiler "Stalin" so, could be worse.
Except "penis" isn't ambiguous. Coq is French for cock -- as in rooster. If you have an issue with the name Coq, chances are you're too infantile to make meaningful use of it or contribute anything of value to it whatsoever.
A name accidentally meaning something bad in one language is a lot worse than a name intentionally meaning something bad in a language that 100% of its userbase speaks and understands.
You do know that coq is a perfectly fine french word, and also in the name of a big french sports brand, right?
Not to mention that "cock" is mere slang, the official word just means rooster.
Also don't use the word "could" because in Dutch that sounds like a nasty word for vagina.
Thanks for being considerate. There is nothing wrong with your English language, but sometimes it sounds offensive in mine.
Nah. I'm joking obviously. I do understand that in an international project with the dominance of English it makes it easier to take these things into account. I don't blame them for looking for a new name.
But the idea that the whole world changes their values and language constructs to not offend American sexual oppressive culture is still stupid. I do blame Americans for that.
I completely agree with that. If anyone demands that then that I would certainly not agree with that. But, I don't think that is what this is about at all. It's my impression that most people who think Coq should get a new name aren't "offended", they just think it's a bad name and that Coq should have a good name.
"Pick" actually sounds like penis in my native language (danish) as well, and I'm pretty sure that a danish company launching a product for the danish market would avoid the name "Pick". I assume that if you where to launch a product in the Netherlands you would avoid naming it "Pick" as well?
Not really. But its not a fair comparision, because Coq isn't an American or British research project, its a french project. Its not even a commercial product or anything.
So i fully understand they want to change their name, but it is sad they feel forced to. Honestly, if someone is harressed by actual adults within a particular culture for using something that could somehow make a 14 year old little boy giggle, then i strongly suggest they leave whatever culture they are in, because its completely backwards.
The problem to infantile behavior and sexism in particular cultures isn't sovled by every other culture renaming their stuff to not trigger this behavior. Lets solve sexual harrassment in English speaking countries by the rest of the world avoiding doing anything that has any phonetic resembles to genitals. Does that not sound idiotic? Is that a not a weird English privilege that other languages don't get?
Again i understand and respect the decision by the project. In the end you just dont want people to get harressed. But lets not pretend the problem is the name. The problem is certain cultures lacking adult behavioral norms for men.
Would anyone be even remotely offended? No...
It would be a non-issue for people beyond middle school?
And doubly so if the term was a regular foreign word.
Are people also taken aback when somebody asks for some coke with their food?
Imagine for a second that your favourite programming language or the one you use at work was called "Penis"? How would that change the perceived seriousness of the language? How fun would it be when you told someone "we use Penis where I work to implement our AwesomeSoftware™?
I use Coq on a daily bases and I've gotten many funny looks when talking about "cock" to people who are not familiar with it. It doesn't bother me much but there is nothing _positive_ about a name like that.