Now, as the title already suggests and the newsgroup in which it stands. This is
not a topic to be taken too seriously so don't kill me please for noticing what
probably other people before me already told a thousand times... Here it is:
I'm French. Well that's not actually all of it :-)!
In French, POV-Ray as a name sounds... how could I call it... really, really
cheap! it's actually pretty close to if it was called "POO-Ray" for english
speakers.
I don't judge a book by its cover, nor in this case by its title. But this will
drive away so many people to whom I have talked about this software.

What do guys answer to that? would actually anybody else feel that it would'nt
suffer from changing name? I certainly will not be so bold as to suggest
anything else, this has probably already been done and by users more intimate
with the program. I just had to make sure you were aware of the smiles we french
povray users have to suffer when we mention it. :)

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"Mr" <nomail@nomail> wrote in message 
news:web.4bace7636188c27867d76f690@news.povray.org...
> Now, as the title already suggests and the newsgroup in which it stands. 
> This is
> not a topic to be taken too seriously so don't kill me please for noticing 
> what
> probably other people before me already told a thousand times... Here it 
> is:
> I'm French. Well that's not actually all of it :-)!
> In French, POV-Ray as a name sounds... how could I call it... really, 
> really
> cheap! it's actually pretty close to if it was called "POO-Ray" for 
> english
> speakers.

I thought it was more like "Poor Ray" ("Pauvre Ray") or perhaps moreso "Po' 
Ray", but I'm not a native French speaker.

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Mr schrieb:
> Now, as the title already suggests and the newsgroup in which it stands. This is
> not a topic to be taken too seriously so don't kill me please for noticing what
> probably other people before me already told a thousand times... Here it is:
> I'm French. Well that's not actually all of it :-)!
> In French, POV-Ray as a name sounds... how could I call it... really, really
> cheap! it's actually pretty close to if it was called "POO-Ray" for english
> speakers.
> I don't judge a book by its cover, nor in this case by its title. But this will
> drive away so many people to whom I have talked about this software.

No matter what name you choose, you always get this sort of thing for 
*some* languages. It's nearly inevitable, and even professional "name 
inventors", whose job it is to invent names for cars and other products, 
suffer from it. For instance they name a car "Nova", though in some 
language it happens to mean "doesn't go".

And besides, I always had the impression that France is one of the 
countries where POV-Ray is most popular.

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clipka <ano### [at] anonymousorg> wrote:
> For instance they name a car "Nova", though in some 
> language it happens to mean "doesn't go".

  Urban legend which isn't true.

  "Nova" in Spanish means exactly the same thing as it means in English,
and isn't confused with anything else.

  Now, Mitsubishi Pajero is a whole different story.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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"Mr" <nomail@nomail> wrote:

> In French, POV-Ray as a name sounds... how could I call it... really, really
> cheap! it's actually pretty close to if it was called "POO-Ray" for english
> speakers.

Actually, I don't even know how to pronounce POV-Ray in Americanized English.
:-(

"pov"-ray with a short o?  P*O*V*-ray as separate initials? What's the official
pronunciation? Whenever I mention the program to friends, I ...stumble.

Ken

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UncleHoot wrote:
> I thought it was more like "Poor Ray" ("Pauvre Ray") or perhaps moreso "Po' 
> Ray", but I'm not a native French speaker. 

Actually it sounds a lot like "pauvret" which is the diminutive form of 
"pauvre", poor. I've experienced exactly what the OP says...

-- 
Vincent

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"Mr" <nomail@nomail> wrote in message 
news:web.4bace7636188c27867d76f690@news.povray.org...
> Now, as the title already suggests and the newsgroup in which it stands. 
> This is
> not a topic to be taken too seriously so don't kill me please for noticing 
> what
> probably other people before me already told a thousand times... Here it 
> is:
> I'm French. Well that's not actually all of it :-)!
> In French, POV-Ray as a name sounds... how could I call it... really, 
> really
> cheap! it's actually pretty close to if it was called "POO-Ray" for 
> english
> speakers.
> I don't judge a book by its cover, nor in this case by its title. But this 
> will
> drive away so many people to whom I have talked about this software.
>
> What do guys answer to that? would actually anybody else feel that it 
> would'nt
> suffer from changing name? I certainly will not be so bold as to suggest
> anything else, this has probably already been done and by users more 
> intimate
> with the program. I just had to make sure you were aware of the smiles we 
> french
> povray users have to suffer when we mention it. :)

In English, "POV" stands for "persistence of vision", which is a phrase that 
is generally used to describe why a series of still images is perceived as 
being in motion. So, one way would be to pronounce it out as "persistance de 
la vision", although that's three extra syllables.

You could coin a brand new phrase to catch everyone's interest... say, 


If you just want to blow them off instead of enticing them, you could offer 
then a french translation of a lovely phrase from Kurt Vonnegut's novel, 
"Slapstick"; I won't repeat it here, but it involves the phrases"Why don't" 
and "rolling doughnut". He didn't coin it, but I like his use of it, and I 
find it very effective in some situations. :-D

--
Jack

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Captain Jack wrote:
> In English, "POV" stands for "persistence of vision", which is a phrase that 
> is generally used to describe why a series of still images is perceived as 
> being in motion. So, one way would be to pronounce it out as "persistance de 
> la vision", although that's three extra syllables. 

The correct French for that is "persistance rétinienne" but I'm not sure 
a translation is the way to go, for one thing it makes it hard to search 
for info about the program.

-- 
Vincent

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> No matter what name you choose, you always get this sort of thing for 
> *some* languages. It's nearly inevitable, and even professional "name 
> inventors", whose job it is to invent names for cars and other products, 
> suffer from it. For instance they name a car "Nova", though in some

Even a poorly chosen name is no bar against fame and popularity. I really 
like Mr. Johnny Depp, as do millions of Germans. Now, in German "Depp" means 
"moron". Definitely NOT a name to choose for an actor. And in your own 
language, the name Sandra Bullock conjures images which are not flattering 
for such a fair lady. Names are not everything.

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Another idea is why would I need to pronouce the "ray" anytime I talked of it to
someone? Any decent renderer today is able to raytrace after all. well actually
this gives a clue that it's a renderer. But then POV is not really cool: it
sounds like "bof" which means "so, so...". Besides "pauvre" woulde still be
present if we talked about the Pov renderer. the kind of thing someone will
always make you repeat to make sure he heard correctly, just like the present
name.

I do like the whole Persistence (of) Vision idea, to me PV-Ray would sound much
better. But so close to the existing Vray, doesn't it seem closer to renderman
in its approach?




Actually having the renderer called just Persistence would be enough and would
also add to its present meaning the idea of maturity which is its strongest
point indeed.

I think that's how I'll first introduce it from now, not to scare people away at
the first mention of it. Then they will find out the complete name when they're
on the official site and they have the incredible pictures of the hall of fame
under their eyes... It will be too late for them to run away :)

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