How Right-Thinking Americans Should Pronounce "Agile"

July 4, 2007 · 1 min read

On the anniversary of our nation's independence I call upon my U.S. citizens to throw off the shackles of our British oppressors and pronounce the word "agile" like true Americans:

  • The pretentious un-American "goofus" pronunciation: aj-ahyl
  • The right-thinking American "gallant" pronunciation: aj-uhl

Listening to the .NET Rocks Team System panel discussion from Tech Ed last week, I was dismayed to hear that only one of the six panelists pronounced "agile" like an American. I'm not sure which one it was, but it may have been the Canadian guy! (Yes, I realize that Canadians and everyone else from North, Central and South American are also American and it's arrogant to use that term only for people from the U.S., but I don't think that "United Statesian" will ever catch on. But enough aboot that, as they say in Canada.)

All of the dictionaries I've checked, including, ahem, the American Heritage dictionary, show "aj-uhl" as the preferred pronunciation.

According to the history of the agile manifesto at agilemanifesto.org, the only objection among the agile founding fathers to the term "agile" came from Martin Fowler, who said that most Americans don't know how to pronounce the word properly. I think that's why a lot of developers say "aj-ahyl" - they want to be like Martin. Being Fowleresque is a very admirable thing if you're designing software, but you don't have to talk like the guy if you're not British.

Am I making too big a deal of this? Perhaps, but it's a slippery slope, my friends. Start saying "aj-ahyl", and before you know it you'll be adding an extra syllable to "aluminum", driving on the wrong side of the road, and clamoring for the addition of a System.Drawing.Colour namespace. Think it can't happen here? Think again - One of the guys on the .NET Rocks show pronounced "process" with a long O, like Jean-Luc-Freaking Picard!

P.S.

Please don't respond with nasty comments - My sense of self-esteem is very fraj-ahyl.

This article is part of the GWB Archives. Original Author: Brian Schroer

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