🔊 say-it · Pronounce

Stop saying "kub-cuttle". A 1-file Bash CLI that pronounces 540+ developer project, product, and jargon names the way the community actually says them — with cited sources.

🌐 pronounce.renlab.ai · 📖 Browse · 🎯 Quiz · 🎤 Voice search · 🔌 MCP server · 🤖 Editor integrations · 🤝 Contribute

📹 Watch the 20-second demo (with real CLI audio) · 🎯 Try the quiz · 🎤 Voice search

The 30-second pitch

You said "n-jinx" in standup. Or "kub-cuttle". Or you've been wondering for six months whether it's JAY-son or JEE-son. You don't need IPA. You need to hear it.

say-it ships a 540-entry community dictionary of how engineers actually say the names that trip everyone up — and pipes the intended respelling to your OS's text-to-speech so kubectl comes out as koob-control, not whatever your computer guessed from the letters.

Every entry has a source citation. Wilhite said GIF is "jif" at the 2013 Webby Awards. Crockford says JSON is "JAY-son" (RailsConf 2009). RFC 7519 says JWT is "jot". The dictionary cites them.

When a word is multi-reading, you hear that too — say-it chains the alternates after the primary with a spoken "or:" so you know the debate exists, no terminal-watching required.

$ say-it kubectl
🔊  koob control. koob control. koob control. or: cube cuddle. or: kube C T L.

$ say-it GIF
🔊  jif. jif. jif. or: gif.

$ say-it --alt GIF        # focus on the alternate
🔊  gif. gif. gif.

$ say-it --why JSON
word              JSON
ipa               /ˈdʒeɪsən/
respelling_us     jay son
source            Douglas Crockford (RailsConf 2009)
url               https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-C-JoyNuQJs

$ say-it quiz             # 10-question interactive pronunciation challenge
$ say-it -i               # REPL — type words, hear them

No more squinting at /ˈkjuːb kənˌtroʊl/. You just hear it.

⭐ If this saves you from one cringey standup moment, star the repo — it nudges more devs to contribute their favorite mispronounced project name.

Why not just Google?

Because Google gives you 47 Reddit arguments and a YouTube clip you have to unmute. IPA gives you /ˈkuːb kənˌtroʊl/ — a reference, not a teacher.

You don't need a phonetic transcription. You need to hear the word. Twice. Maybe three times. Done.

say-it ships a community-maintained dictionary of how engineers actually say the names that trip everyone up — and feeds the intended respelling to your OS's text-to-speech engine, so kubectl comes out as koob-control, not whatever your computer guessed from the letters.

Famous moments

Some pronunciations aren't opinions — the creators settled them. The dictionary cites every one:

Every dictionary entry includes a source_url. Run say-it --why <word> to see it.

Install (macOS)

git clone https://github.com/anzy-renlab-ai/pronounce.git
cd pronounce && ./install.sh

This drops:

• the CLI at ~/.local/bin/say-it,
• the pronunciation dictionary at ~/.local/share/say-it/pronunciations.tsv, and
• if you use Claude Code, a pronounce-word skill at ~/.claude/skills/pronounce-word/ so any "how do you say X?" prompt to your AI gets answered with audio instead of IPA.

Make sure ~/.local/bin is on your $PATH.

Usage

say-it kubectl                    # primary × 3, then "or: <alt>" for each alternate
say-it --solo kubectl             # primary only — silence the "or:" tail
say-it --alt GIF                  # focus on the first alternate
say-it --alt 2 GUI                # focus on the Nth alternate (1-indexed)
say-it --all SQL                  # primary AND every alternate, each repeated
say-it --no-dict kubectl          # bypass the dictionary entirely
say-it --why JSON                 # show IPA, source URL, category, confidence
say-it list                       # every word in the dictionary
say-it search redis               # grep the dictionary (case-insensitive)

say-it -n 5 Pydantic              # 5 repetitions instead of 3
say-it -r 130 Knative             # slower (130 wpm; default is 175)
say-it -o /tmp/word.aiff Postgres # save to file instead of playing
say-it --list                     # all macOS voices

The default voice is Samantha (General American). Pass -v <voice> for any other macOS voice — but the dictionary is GenAm-only, by design.

Claude Code integration

You:    kubectl 怎么读？
Claude: 🔊 (plays "koob-control" three times)
        /ˈkuːb kənˌtroʊl/ — "KOOB-control". Kelsey Hightower says it
        this way (KubeCon talk). "Cube-cuddle" is an alternate —
        try `say-it --alt kubectl` to hear it.

Once installed, the pronounce-word skill auto-triggers on:

• X 怎么读 / X 怎么发音 / 读一下 X
• how do you pronounce X / pronounce X / how do you say X

Your AI replies with sound, not just a phonetic guess. Skill file: skills/pronounce-word/SKILL.md.

How the dictionary works

data/pronunciations.tsv is the single source of truth — tab-separated, 70+ entries at v0.1, covering:

• Cloud / DevOps: kubectl, nginx, Kubernetes, helm, Istio, Envoy, Prometheus, Grafana, Terraform, Argo, Knative, etcd, containerd, runc, Podman, ...
• Languages / Frameworks: Django, Vue, Vite, Pydantic, Bun, Deno, Hugo, Hono, Caddy, Svelte, Astro, Pinia, ...
• Databases: PostgreSQL, Postgres, SQLite, MySQL, MongoDB, Cassandra, Redis, Ceph, ScyllaDB, ClickHouse, DuckDB, ...
• CS jargon / acronyms: GIF, JSON, SQL, GUI, GNU, char, regex, sudo, tmux, chmod, WYSIWYG, ASCII, enum, NaN, SaaS, PaaS, ...
• Distros / tools: Linux, Debian, Ubuntu, Arch, Nix, LaTeX, TeX, emacs, zsh, ...

Each entry has 10 columns: word | ipa | phon_us | alt_ipa | alt_phon_us | source_url | source_label | category | confidence | notes. The phon_us column is Apple's Speech Synthesis phoneme set, injected into say via [[inpt PHON]]…[[inpt TEXT]]. This is what gives the intended reading rather than whatever the TTS would have inferred from the letters.

Local override: drop a ~/.config/say-it/pronunciations.local.tsv and it takes precedence.

What works today

• ✅ macOS — any word, via the built-in say engine. Zero dependencies.
• ✅ 440+ project / product / jargon entries with cited sources.
• ✅ Audible multi-reading awareness — contested words audibly chain alternates with "or:".
• ✅ --alt [N], --all, --solo, --why, --json, --md, --no-dict, list, search, quiz, repl, stream, doctor, export, benchmark, badge, cheatsheet.
• ✅ Claude Code skill + MCP server for AI-side pronunciation questions.
• ✅ Browser PWA — installable, offline-capable, instant search, voice-mic search, interactive quiz.
• ✅ Editor integrations — Raycast, Alfred, VS Code, Cursor, Codex, Continue.

What's coming

See DESIGN.md for the architecture.

• 🪟 Windows support via PowerShell + System.Speech.SpeechSynthesizer, same CLI flags.
• 🌐 Static dictionary site on GitHub Pages — every word browsable, with a play button and source citation.
• ☁️ Cloud TTS (opt-in ElevenLabs / OpenAI) for the names native TTS still mangles.
• 🐧 Linux backend (espeak-ng, then cloud).
• 🔄 say-it update to pull the latest dictionary without reinstalling.
• 📚 Anki export for vocabulary drills.

Contributing

Two things we want most:

1. Pronunciation entries. Open a PR adding a row to data/pronunciations.tsv. Required columns: word, ipa, phon_us. Highly preferred: source_url (creator interview, conf talk, official FAQ — anything verifiable). Contested readings are welcome; put the rival in alt_* columns and we'll wire --alt through.
2. Non-Mac backends. Windows and Linux are top priority. See DESIGN.md §Backends.

Keep it tiny. Keep it dep-free where possible. Keep the defaults opinionated (3 reps, GenAm, Samantha voice).

License

MIT — see LICENSE.

IPA is a reference. Audio is a teacher.