Phoenetic Pronunciation of Serial ATA's acronym

[NDGeist]

Serial ATA, the new push in hard drive storage; has an interesting, word like, acronym. This causes a bit of confusion, because people like to make words out of acronyms and use that instead of calling it by it's name. Basically, I work in support for a server manuf. and when Serial ATA comes up in meetings, different people call it different things. I have a feeling that our director of technology, in an effort to make himself sound smart, has caused a bit of an epidemic around here. Basically, he started calling SATA "say-tah" instead of actually saying "serial A.T.A." as, in my experience, most people do.

My question is--
If you are referring to Serial ATA/SATA drives, do you say:
"A 73Gb Serial ATA drive will do"
"A 73Gb 'say-tah' drive will do"
or some other varient?

Personally, I think saying "Say-tah" is really dumb, and I think it makes our company look un-professional.

Thanks,

Chip

Edit, added "sah-tah" to poll. Remember, it's "what you think is correct" not what you've heard. TIA
Edit2, though it's only going to add more confusion, I added S-A-T-A to the poll.

 

[KristopherKubicki]

Hmm ive heard it pronounced sah-tah before not Say-tah though.

Kristopher

 

[volrath]

S-A-T-A.

 

[ndee]

<Sean Paul style> ATA ATA ATA ATA </Sean Paul style>

 

[odog]

S-ATA

ATA is already a known acronym. i just add the "S" to the front end. for example, how many people do you know that say "pah-tah", "pay-tah", "pay-teh". most commonly i here it referred to as parallel ATA. or just straight ATA.

 

[NDGeist]

I guess when it comes down to it, I think that pronouncing the acronym makes people look lazy/unprofessional. Just one mans opinion though.

 

[JBT]

repost, but I say S-A-T-A I really get annoyed when people Say Tah or sah-tah, its an FING acronym!!!

 

[NDGeist]

This is a repost... Gah, i feel like such a n00b...
Sorry..

 

[JBT]

haha no prob probably be hard to find even with a search

 

[Zepper]

Yes, I use either Serial A-T-A or S-A-T-A, depending on the tech savvyness of the person to whom I am speaking.
..bh.

 

[nitromullet]

"Serial-ATA", "Sah-tah" just sounds stupid. Did anyone pronounce regular ATA drives "Ah-tah"?

 

[nitromullet]

Yep, this is a repost. Along the same lines though, maybe there should be a poll about how PCI-Express should be written, pci-express, pci-e, or pcx? I personally feel whoever named pcx did a pretty sorry job, pci-express is often confused woth pci-x, plus it would have actually been nice to see something new come out that didn't have 'X' in it for a change.

 

[NDGeist]

Thank you for your response everyone. Now to figure out how to change everyone else in the company..

-NDG

 

[gsellis]

Originally posted by: NDGeist
I guess when it comes down to it, I think that pronouncing the acronym makes people look lazy/unprofessional. Just one mans opinion though.

And you say Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation all of the time, right

 

[Confused]

Serial A.T.A., or S.A.T.A.



Confused

 

[Dug]

serial ata

There's a lot of acronym's pronounced instead of spelled out.
There's nothing wrong with it.

 

[NDGeist]

Originally posted by: gsellis
And you say Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation all of the time, right

Of course, right after I go for a quick swim with my Self Contained Underwater Breathing Apperatus.

 

[Addikt]

If you really want to you can use the term "say-tah" just to cut some corners...but in the true sense of the word it SHOULD be pronounced either Serial A-T-A or S-A-T-A since it is an acronym for Serial AT Attachment. All capital letters are pronounced as capitals.

So would you say Serial A-T Attachment or Serial 'at' attachment...probably the first as opposed to the latter.

Cheers.

 

[DeRusto]

Originally posted by: JBT
repost, but I say S-A-T-A I really get annoyed when people Say Tah or sah-tah, its an FING acronym!!!

so would you say S-C-S-I or scuzzi?

 

[high]

sayta

 

[Corporate Thug]

Originally posted by: volrath
S-A-T-A.

 

[n7]

Not to stir up controversy, but Say-tuh makes perfect sense to me; it's what i call them if i don't wanna say serial a-t-a

 

[gsaldivar]

It's pronounced "SAY-TAN"

:beer:

 

[gsellis]

Sega

 

[CQuinn]

Originally posted by: n7
Not to stir up controversy, but Say-tuh makes perfect sense to me; it's what i call them if i don't wanna say serial a-t-a

I think its more a matter of what common usage is, rather than whether it makes sense.

Some techs will mentally assign a person who gives an unusual pronounciation of an industry term,
into the same category as people who confuse their HD capacity with the speed or size of their RAM.

We have a guy here at work who refers to new users as newbians, which comes across to my
hearing as "nubians". I don't bother correcting him, because his usage is not really out of line,
but it makes him sound like more of a newbie than the people he is disparaging with the remark.

FWIW, the "official" designation appears to be Serial ATA (from http://www.serialata.org. Although they also write out SATA, but don't seem to provide a
pronounciation guide.

Another variant that I see in use is "ess-ata", with a slight break between the "S" and the "ATA"
(similar to the way you would pronounce "S-Video" or "S-VHS").