this post was submitted on 17 Dec 2025
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and the g in gnu stands for gnu
Yeah, they missed the best part.
GNU stands for GNU's Not Unix, which is a recursive acronym. And, when pronounced properly (like the animal) the G is silent. The entire Linux ecosystem has words that start with G based on an acronym where G essentially comes from nowhere, and isn't actually pronounced.
Well, I dont wanna start a debate, but the official website of GNU indicate that the "g" in GNU isn't silent.
So it depends on whether you want to pronounce it "properly" or as it was intended.
https://www.gnu.org/gnu/pronunciation.en.html
gnew?
Yeah, but that's wrong. It's named after the animal, and the animal is pronounced without a G sound. I'm not going to mangle the pronunciation because they screwed up.
Depends on where you're from.
Noot noot mother fucker
So if I'm getting it right, gobject is short for gnugnu(...)gnuimptklibobject.
It is front recursive so it's really "...is not unix is not unix is not unix is not unix image manipulation program tool kit object" and that first g doesn't exist.
It's recursive so it's more like gnugnugnugnugnugnugnugnugnugnugnugnugnugnugnugnugnugnugnugnugnugnugnugnugnugnugnugnugnugnugnugnugnugnugnugnugnugnugnugnu...
gnuplestiltskin
Following the modern C conventions, the text following the series of (gnu) doesn't matter and you can write anything you want there.
Gnugnugnufuckyou
Now you need to write a layer of typedefs to map the expanded names back to their original types.
Fun fact: The K in GNU stands for Kernel.
GNU does have a kernel though
KNURD
Did make me actually laugh.
gotem
Then what does the g in gnu stand for?
gnu
Okay but what does the g stand for?
Blue Gnu or Black Gnu?
you're not gonna believe this...
I’ve got g’news for you…
g'news and g'day to you as well, g'lady!
I think this is sarcasm, but just in case it isn't... GNU is a recursive acronym for "GNU's Not Unix".
My guess for why they chose the letter g is that gnu can be phonetically the same as just nu, but keeps people from interpreting the name of the project as a dumb spelling of "new".
gnot unix
Gary
as in the inventor of chess, THE Gary Chess?
rival of George Checkers?
All the gnus