Pronunciation Of Template

Every English dictionary I've seen gives the pronunciation of template as /tem-plit/. Some dictionaries provide an alternate spelling, templet, whose pronunciation should be obvious.

Curiously, many C++ programmers pronounce it as /tem-playt/, and will argue vehemently if you suggest the pronunciation is non-standard. In fact, it seems to me that the majority of C++ programmers use this mispronunciation. I have only seen this behavior among C++ programmers, not among other people. (I am a C++ programmer myself, so don't take this as an anti-C++ rant.)

The mispronunciation really grates on my nerves, and I hope people will stop using it. Tell your friends. Thank you.

-- KrisJohnson

The Concise Oxford Dictionary's second pronunciation shows the second vowel to be as in mate, which doesn't exactly contradict your assertion (since you probably haven't seen it) but certainly weakens your position.

Chambers only gives /templit/ which was a surprise to me, as I've never, in my thirty-two years (as C++ programmer or civilian) spoken myself, or heard the word pronounced by others, other than as /templayt/.

Perhaps we should bear in mind that pronunciation guides given in dictionaries are descriptive not prescriptive, in the first place; and in the second always are descriptive only of some designated "standard" accent rather than of typical speech; and in the third place are descriptive of that standard accent as it was some years prior to the publication date of the dictionary. The "received pronunciation" described in the Oxford dictionaries, for instance, is these days actually spoken by a vanishingly small number of people in the UK (although it is more common in, say, Pakistan), and never was representative of the majority of British spoken English, but rather of that of the UK's small ruling elite.

As far as the C++ community specifically goes, it might be interesting to know how Dr. Stroustroup (a Dane) pronounces the word. -- KeithBraithwaite

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