how do you pronounce 'tuple'?

[Erik Max Francis]

Terry Hancock wrote:

> I doubt that helps much: I pronounce all of those words
> (when I use them, which is not too often) as "-toopel". The
> only tuple I pronounce with the "-uh-" is "couple", and I
> usually call that a "two-tuple" when dealing with Python.

I prefer the name _pair_ :-).

> I suspect that even those who would pronounce 'quintuple'
> "kwintuhpel" would say 'quintuplicate' as "kwinTOOPlikuht".
> (that's the noun, not the verb, which is "kwintoopliKATE").

Yeah.  The short form is that both are right and which one is more 
common is probably regional more than anything.  I've heard people say 
_toople_ vs. _tuhple_, but I've never heard anyone say _quintoople_ vs. 
_quintuhple_ (granted, not that the situation arises all that often).

But come to think of it, it kind of does.  I've heard _quintuhplet_ and 
_sextuhplet_ and the like plenty of times, and I've never heard it 
pronounced the other way (in General American).  m-w.com shows something 
interesting here -- the first listed pronunciation for _quintuple_ is oo 
with uh being an alternate, but the first listed pronunciation for 
_quintuplet_ is uh with oo being an alternate.  Which probably goes to 
emphasize that that it's just whatever you're used to and there's no 
rhyme or reason to any of it.

> So what's a 1-element tuple, anyway? A "mople"?  "monople"?
> It does seem like this lopsided pythonic creature (1,) ought
> to have a name to reflect its ugly, newbie-unfriendly
> nature.

In mathematics there's really no such entity such tuples involve 
elements of cartesian products of sets, and so if there are no cartesian 
products involved you're just talking about an element of a set, which 
is just a thing.

Of course that's still a completely valid construct in Python so the 
question stands.  If a 4-tuple is a quadruple, a 3-tuple is a triple, a 
2-tuple is an pair, then I guess a 1-tuple would be a single.  Granted 
that's not nearly as gruesome enough a name to go with the special 
lopsided Pythonic creature mentioned above.  I suggest we name it a 
hurgledink.

-- 
Erik Max Francis && max at alcyone.com && http://www.alcyone.com/max/
San Jose, CA, USA && 37 20 N 121 53 W && AIM erikmaxfrancis
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