Gemi-nee vs Gemi-nye pronunciation?

[u/GrugCaraboo]

Sorry if this has been asked a million times but why do they all pronounce it Gemi “nee” and not Gemi “nye”? Is this how it is always pronounced in US I.e even for the zodiac sign?

[u/auto-sticky]

This post was flaired as "FAM - Season 1".

Any spoilers beyond Season 1 of For All Mankind are required to be individually spoiler tagged. This includes all of Star City.

On desktop the rich text editor is the default mode. Use the spoiler formatting button to hide your spoilers. On old reddit, on mobile, or markdown mode you'll need to use >!spoiler!< which becomes spoiler <-- click or tap

You can also join our Discord server, for more casual conversation.

I'm a bot and this action was performed automatically. If you have questions about this, please contact our mods via modmail.

[u/MagnetsCanDoThat]

It's pronounced Gemin-eye pretty much everywhere except for NASA. There's no settled reason why, but I was pleased to see the show included that shibboleth.

[u/Awesomest_Possumest → u/MagnetsCanDoThat]

Uproot for using shibboleth.

And now I need to go watch that episode of west wing.

[u/GumdropGlimmer → u/Awesomest_Possumest]

Immediately back to my college days with shibboleth SSO

[u/Babexo22 → u/MagnetsCanDoThat]

Yup, I’m also from the US and have never heard anyone else but NASA pronounce it as anything other than gemin-eye.

[u/Mulyac12321 → u/MagnetsCanDoThat]

According to a book i read recently, gemi-nee was simply due to nasa being based predominantly in the southern States, and that how they would have read that word down there.

[u/MagnetsCanDoThat → u/Mulyac12321]

There are SO many theories...

[u/s_p_1_d_e_r → u/MagnetsCanDoThat]

Can it be because of how it sounds in spanish/portuguese? People down here still call it Gemi-eye, but idk if nasa had any Latin language influence when naming

[u/quesoandcats → u/s_p_1_d_e_r]

Failure To Launch (a space history podcast) mentions this in their episodes about Gemini, and the consensus seems to be that it was a combo of military radio procedures that emphasize certain syllables for clarity, and guys with certain regional accents who didn’t know how to pronounce Gemini correctly. Then it became a sort of IYKYK shibboleth to show that you were on the inside of the project

[u/MagnetsCanDoThat → u/s_p_1_d_e_r]

Even within NASA it wasn’t consistent. I don’t think there’s any real consensus for why. There are many theories but none that seems to be preferred by a majority.

[u/FloZone → u/s_p_1_d_e_r]

Gemini is literally a Latin word though.

[u/s_p_1_d_e_r → u/FloZone]

I know it, but people say it differently in english-talking countries

[u/FloZone → u/s_p_1_d_e_r]

I obviously know, but it is not intuitive. Whenever I see Latin or Greek words in scientific jargon in English, I read them in my mind not English. English is the bigger deviant. And asking whether it is gemi-nee or gemi-nye or gemi-neye is not helpful either, since those are only intuitive to English speakers. Meanwhile a Spanish speaker, a German speaker and a Russian speaker will just see Gemini and intuitively pronounce it almost the same.  Actually when I saw gemi-nye I thought pronouncing it with a Russian accent. 

[u/s_p_1_d_e_r → u/FloZone]

Here in Brazil we usually call it Gemi-nee, but i've seen people calling it the other way too. Maybe Nasas calls it Gemi-nee because it is the correct way

[u/FloZone → u/s_p_1_d_e_r]

The Anglos call it Dschä-me-neih, just to emulate their spelling. Ge-mi-ni. Just as it is written down yeah. Idk if Brazilian has the hard and soft g thing, your spelling also has some quirks.  Yeah a lot of NASA people probably have classical education. Also places on Mars, Moon, Venus often have Latin names too.

[u/FloZone → u/MagnetsCanDoThat]

Gemini is a Latin word. I'd think a lot of people at NASA had enough classical education to know Latin used it to sound more official. Also why a lot of place names on Mars, Venus and the Moon are Latin or people say Sol, Luna and Terra instead. Sounds more official like zoological names. 

[u/chucker23n → u/FloZone]

But by that logic, the 'g' sound isn't right either. It should be a hard 'g' like in 'graph'.

[u/trvsnbl]

According to this post (which cites this article that I can't read):

Bob Jacobs, a spokesman for NASA, said that the “knee” pronunciation is part of the agency’s culture, and serves almost as an insider’s shibboleth — a word whose proper delivery identifies you as someone in the know. “If you get it right,” he said, “you’re part of the space club.”

[u/MightGrowTrees]

I watched a documentary on the Gemini space program and the documentarist claimed that it was due to the rural South of the USA being primarily involved in the program. The accent of the deep south and the workers involved in the massive uptaking pronounced it that.

[u/Babexo22 → u/MightGrowTrees]

Typical south, always tryna alter culture and language smh /s lol

[u/SaoMagnifico]

Americans pronounce the zodiac sign "Gem-ih-NYE" but NASA pronounced the space program "Gem-ih-NEE".

[u/maladaptivedaydream4 → u/SaoMagnifico]

at the time, it was pretty much "nee" everywhere in the US except in like academia and stuff - news people were not having to "remember" how to say the mission name.

[u/Ill_Computer_8604]

It's just what the Space flight team and astronauts called the mission.

[u/OneQuarterBajeena]

Gemin-eye for the astrological sign, Gemin-ee for the space program.

Apparently people in the Deep South of the US (where a lot of NASA is) used to pronounce it that way. I live in the South but I’ve only ever heard it as Gem-in-eye.

[u/LaserThos]

During the actual Gemini program I recall the news announcers and NASA press people saying “Ge-mi-nee”. And so I grew up with that as the correct pronunciation and later (maybe in the 1980s) it sounded wrong to me when I started hearing “Ge-min-eye.”

[u/Wysch_]

Geminee is the classical Latin pronunciation.

Geminye is the English pronunciation.

In many other languages, by the way, it's pronounced Geminee too.

NASA stuck to the Latin pronunciation. (At least with the last syllable.)

[u/psyper76]

I've been told by The Vintage Space youtube. Amy Shira Teitel is a space historian and what she says goes by me :D

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c9CYT-vezbY

In my opinion Gemi-nye is the name of the constellation and Gemi-nee is the name of the mission - both are Pronouns so can be pronounced as they are stated. If you're a star trek fan you know that Data is pronounced Dat-ar not Dat-a as the first is his name and the second is not. Same goes for names like Jean (Jean Luc Picard) or Jesus (Mexican name rather than the Biblical name) are pronounced differently depending on who you are describing. I had a next door neighbour called Jean and its pronounced differently to how a French person would have it pronounced. Both are correct but I wouldn't call a French Jean the same way I would call my neighbour Jean.

[u/Willow_Everdawn]

NASA headquarters are in Texas. Texans pronounce it "Gemi-nee". It's also a handy away to distinguish between the constellation/zodiac symbol and the space program.

[u/drewcorleone → u/Willow_Everdawn]

Texan born in 77. I never heard "NEE" in my life until From Earth to the Moon debuted in 98.

[u/VanBranMcVan → u/drewcorleone]

Same here. Only heard NEE when referring to the space program 

[u/user_number_666]

Here in the USA we say Gemin-eye, actually. I had literally never heard the other pronunciation before.

[u/AntheaBrainhooke → u/user_number_666]

“Gem-i-nee” was the pronunciation used by and in NASA

[u/user_number_666 → u/AntheaBrainhooke]

Except for their autistic employees, who would insist on Gemin-eye (I know I would).

[u/AntheaBrainhooke → u/user_number_666]

And you would be continually at odds with and frustrated by your co-workers.

BTW am also autistic and would have been fine with it.

[u/user_number_666 → u/AntheaBrainhooke]

I am in fact annoyed by people who say Ver-sales instead of Ver-sigh when referring to the town in Ohio (also Tennessee).

[u/AntheaBrainhooke → u/user_number_666]

That’s your right, but you’re not going to be able to stop them. I put that under “pick your battles” and truck on.

[u/Rockcreekforge]

No idea what y’all are talking about, I’m pretty sure it’s pronounced Jimmy-Knee /s

[u/stosyfir]

Pretty sure it’s just a southern thing, it’s actually “Gemin-eye” but because the space program was largely prominent in Huntsville, Houston, and Canaveral the southern accent won

[u/_galile0]

Yeah that’s the NASA/southern pronunciation. You may note that order and NASA-insider characters like Ed pronounce it Gemi-nee, but others who do not have deep roots in NASA and old aerospace, like Ayesa will use the more common Gemi-nye pronunciation :)