The Love Shack

If I hear one more person pronounce the word “daemon” as “damon”, I’m gonna go crazy. Well, maybe not. Probably too late for that already.

But, either way, it’s quite annoying. I really don’t understand why people are so uncomfortable with saying the word “demon” when talking about computers. They look at “daemon” and think, oh that can’t possibly be the same word as “demon” because that’s bad, so I’ll just pretend it’s something different. Well, sorry, it’s not.

Or, perhaps, they’re thrown off by that letter “a” in there. Now, the fact that the proper historical spelling is dæmon (note the letter æ) should be a slight hint. The “ae” in “daemon” is a digraph meant to represent “æ” since most computer keyboards don’t have a convenient way of typing the letter. So what other words use that letter?

How about: cæsar, æthereal, encyclopædia and hæmoglobin? There are certainly quite a few more, but I don’t feel like turning this into a book. So, let’s look at these words:

Cæsar (Caesar or Cesar)
You wouldn’t order a cAser salad, would you?

Æthereal (aethereal or ethereal)
This one should be particularly noticeable for IT folks. I don’t typically use Athereal to sniff network traffic.

Encyclopædia (encyclopaedia or encyclopedia)
If you look on the side of that big thick book on your shelf, you’ll notice that it is written “Encyclopædia Britannica”. Yet most of us know how to pronounce that word. And, while you’re at it, look up daemon in there.

Hæmoglobin (haemoglobin or hemoglobin)
This is one of those great examples of a word that has been simplified in American English to more accurately reflect the pronunciation. The “a” was removed entirely to simplify the word. Much like removing the “a” from “daemon” to give us “demon” in American English. Imagine that…