Linux Command Pronunciation

chmod (change mode) is pronounced "CHANGE-mod" /tʃeɪndʒ mɒd/ — two syllables: CHANGE (/tʃeɪndʒ/, the English word) + mod (/mɒd/, short for "mode"). Stress is on "CHANGE." Some engineers also say "chuh-mod" /tʃʌmɒd/ treating it as a blended word, but the more informative pronunciation is "change-mod" which reflects its meaning. In a sentence: "Run chmod 755 on the shell script to make it executable by all users."

chown (change owner) is pronounced "CHANGE-own" /tʃeɪndʒ oʊn/ — two syllables mirroring the command's meaning: "change" + "own." Alternatively, some say "chown" rhyming with "town" /tʃaʊn/. The "change-own" reading is the most descriptive and widely taught in Linux courses. Stress is on "CHANGE." In a sentence: "Use chown www-data:www-data to transfer ownership of the web root to the web server user."

grep (Global Regular Expression Print) is pronounced "grep" /ɡrɛp/ — one syllable, rhyming with "step" or "pep." The vowel is short /ɛ/. The initial consonant cluster is /ɡr/, like "green." It is always spoken as a single word, never spelled out. In a sentence: "Pipe the log file through grep to filter only lines containing 'ERROR' before counting them."

awk (Aho, Weinberger, Kernighan — its creators' initials) is pronounced "awk" /ɔːk/ — one syllable, rhyming with "walk," "talk," and "chalk." The vowel is the broad /ɔː/ sound. It is always treated as a word, never spelled out. In a sentence: "Use awk to extract and sum the third column of a CSV file in a single pipeline command."

cron is pronounced "kron" /krɒn/ — one syllable. In British English the O is short /ɒ/ (like "on"), and in American English it is often /kroʊn/ (like "kronos"). The word comes from the Greek word for time (Chronos). It is always spoken as a word, not spelled out. In a sentence: "Schedule the backup script as a cron job to run at 2 AM every night."