What is the proper way to say "Godot"?

Question

THE question. We hear it all: GO-doh, GOH-doh, go-DOH, go-DOT (ouch), GO-dot, g'DOT, go-do...

What's the proper way? The People need to know!

Comments

I heard the developer call it Go-dot. That's good enough for me. It is from South America, not French. It is mispronounced by more people than not. Similar to how most people fail to pronounce the t in the name of the actress, Gal Gadot. She however does pronounce the t. So yet it is Go-dot.

Answer 1

Since the play "En attendant Godot" has been written in French, and I'm French, I think I'm legitimate to answer (or maybe not, who know?): Go-doh.

Comments

See my comment on the other answer for more detail, but if it is pronounced as in "En attendant Godot", then it is pronounced as /ˈɡɒdoʊ/.

Answer 2

I'll give a try at answering my own question.

As Juan stated several times (see this old blog post or the reference on this Wikipedia article), Godot's name is inspired from Samuel Beckett's theatre play Waiting for Godot.

So one could consider that Godot should be pronounced as Beckett intended it; however that's a much debated question, and there is no total consensus. But really guys, use GOH-doh if you're to go with an English-like pronunciation.

Now here's some bias from a French dude: Beckett's play was (even though he was Irish) first written in French as En attendant Godot, and only later translated in English. So I think the right pronunciation of Godot is as any Frenchman would do: go-do, without particular stress on any syllable. And most importantly: no hard T at the end!

Comments

The answer always depends on language used. In many languages the names are translated and then Godot may be pronounced with not so silent "T" at the end.

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Juan may have said that but he pronounces it like robot in his YouTube node tutorials.

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If it is pronounced the same as Waiting For Godot is, as this answer suggests then it is pronounced as /ˈɡɒdoʊ/. I have written this in IPA for clarity sake. You can find help reading IPA if you go to the Help:IPA/English on Wikipedia.

The "g" is pronounced as usual. The first "o" is pronounced like the o in "Lot" or "Pod" or "John". The "d" is pronounced as usual. The "ot" at the end is pronounced the the "o" in "Code" or the "ow" in "Follow".

I hope this clarifies the above answer.

Answer 3

It is GOD-oh. End of discussion.

No? You want to keep mispronouncing it, you say?

Considering it has to rhyme with "Pozzo", lest the play's main protagonists never mishear "Pozzo" as "Godot", there can be only one pronunciation to rule them all, and that is GOD-oh!

Comments

Hehe, I have always pronounced it as GOD-oh, and cringe when I hear go-DOT in some tutes...makes it sound like a kids toy :) If I was to pronounce it as g'doh it would sound too much like g'day with my Aussie accent!

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I don't know the play well, but Pozzo looks like an Italian name -- in which case the pronunciation would be "po-tzo" (same vowel sounds as "GoPro" or "Yo-yo"). So by that logic, it's go-doh.

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No doubt you are all correct that it was intended to be pronounced GOD-oh.
However, stubborn as Americans are, most of us will probably pronounce it GO-dot just to Americanize the word, and because GO-dot sounds much more "techy".

I sometimes think the name itself holds this beautiful engine back from increased popularity. Feels like half of my Google searches give me something about the play rather than the engine.

Answer 4

I'd propose to officially have no official pronunciation, like we did it in the Mageia community.

For an international project with many non-native English speakers, it's hard to define a "One Pronunciation to Rule Them All", so it's likely better if we settle on not having an official pronunciation. Many users seem to find it a big deal that Godot is pronounced differently in various video tutorials, etc. - let's make that a strength instead of an inconsistency.

Comments

To me that's more of a cop-out. "We have a name for our engine no one really knows how to pronounce... I know, let's make it a feature!" I like the engine, but the name not so much.

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It's not that no one knows how to pronounce it. It just that a pronunciation can't be enforced, just like for the Mageia example I cited. So if you're American, just say g'DOH, if you're a Spanish-speaker say go-dot, if you're British say GOH-doh, if you're French say go-do, if you're Japanese say GO-DO... who cares?

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I agree with everything you're saying, but to say a mispronunciation should be a strength is odd to me. If anything, everyone pronouncing it the same; i.e. Unity, would make it more consistent and strong. But I'm not overly knocking the engine. To me, it's great. I just like having consistency...so says my OCD. ;)

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There's no mispronunciation if a right pronunciation does not exist. Google for the pronunciation of Godot in "En attendant Godot" or "Waiting for Godot", people are clueless. Beckett never wanted to give an official pronunciation, I don't see why we should either :)

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But mainly, I don't care much. End of the story as far as I'm concerned, it's fine if you don't like my proposal :)

Answer 5

Just an FYI, if you ever use a text to speech app, use "gud-OH". I found this to be the closest to how it should be pronounced. I use texttovoice.online to do my text to speech conversions.