• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

You can tell a lot about a person by how they refer to Nintendo's ~La Snesse~ (SNES)

redcrayon

Member
SNEZ pronunciation is outright incorrect.

The sound similar to 'z' for 's' typically comes from adding the s to the end of a word to mark it as plural (dogs, cats, etc).

Singular nouns that end in 's' (bus, glass, Texas, Christmas) typically have the long 's' sound.

You're not talking about the plural of SNE here. If you're going to read out SNES it should be SNESS.
I'm sure this argument would have gone down very well in U.K. playgrounds, renowned for their appreciation of correct grammar. Christ, wearing the wrong trainers was tantamount to a kicking at my school in 1991, let alone lecturing the rest of the kids on how to pronounce something they either loved or hated with a passion :D

It followed on from pronunciation of 'NES' as 'NEZ', which I don't remember anyone saying as 'NESS'. Maybe because Loch Ness is what 'ness' means to U.K. kids and it looked shorter than that, hence the harsh 'z'. Stuff that catches on isn't always right, which is why shitloads of memes continue to exist, I suppose.
 

kromeo

Member
UK everyone I knew called it snez at the time, can't honestly say I've heard anyone reference the console in any way in the last 15 years or so
 

XaosWolf

Member
I'm a fan of the PissToo, Giba, and Gicken

PS2, GBA and GCN are all initialisms as they do not form a functioning word due to the position of the vowel.

I'm not saying that "S-N-E-S" is wrong - just pointing out that saying "Sness"/"Snez" is also correct and significantly quicker for verbal communication.
 

Haganeren

Member
I'm French so "Sness" (as "Ess NES" ) is the best way to call it. When i was a kid, i did call it the "Super Nintendo" thought, but i saw "SNES" so many time on the Internet that i prefer this way of calling it way better.

"S.N.E.S." is so strange to me, i hear U.S. Speaker call it like that fromt ime to time but i don't like it... So i don't care.

I don't care how i "should" call those kind of things to be honest. In French we don't have a "it", we only have "he" or "she" that mean every object have a genre. "La" table, "Le" crayon, "La" cathédrale.
Everyone knows that the Gameboy is called "Le" Gameboy officially. I don't care about that, it's awful and i will always say "La" Game Boy.

TL;DR : Call the things in the way that make the most sense to you. Super Nintendo is way too long anyway.
 

Synth

Member
PS2, GBA and GCN are all initialisms as they do not form a functioning word due to the position of the vowel.

I'm honestly astounded how many people can't seem to comprehend the difference when throwing out these dumb comparisons, lol.
 
In Germany I never heard anything other than "Super Nintendo" or "Ess Enn E Ess" (S. N. E. S.).

Hearing "SNEZ" (snezz) in that UK video game show makes me cringe tbh but then a minute later I won't care anymore ;-)
 

oberjin

Neo Member
French here, i'm used to "la snesse". What really bother me is people saying Nitendo instead of Nintendo, don't know if it's only in France that people mispronounce it.
 

Bert

Member
UK here, never heard it called anything other than Snez.

"Super Nintendo" sounds like something your Mum would say.
 

SolVanderlyn

Thanos acquires the fully powered Infinity Gauntlet in The Avengers: Infinity War, but loses when all the superheroes team up together to stop him.
You probably guessed it before clicking on the thread but this is the real reason we're here, to deal with this problem. I want to believe that you weren't alive at the time and so you just don't know any better. Like how you bought a used "VHS Player" to play your "VHS's" and you collect "Vinyls".

As countless other people have pointed out, around the UK 'Sness/Snez' was the absolute norm at the time of release. I had one when I was little, not long after it was released and anybody at school or in game stores or whatever pronounced it 'Sness'. It's a cultural difference. A slang term based off an acronym.

It's not directly comparable to "Vinyls" because that's grammatically wrong (as in, vinyl is both plural and singular, like sheep or deer), though even as someone who collects records it's not something I lose sleep over.

Basically yet another person saying "you're wrong" which in reality means "your way differs from what's considered a norm in the USA and upsets me".

UK here, never heard it called anything other than Snez.

"Super Nintendo" sounds like something your Mum would say.

Aye.
 

Venom.

Member
The OP is wrong to say the only people who say SNES are people who lived after the event. Back in the day loads of mags in the UK wrote SNES and i recall other kids says SNES. I mainly said Super Nintendo.

EDIT: I might have said SNES too, it's so long ago i'm not sure what I used to say!
 
From UK here so its was Snez or Snes all the way.

We also pronounce Mario (Ma-rio) correctly so...

Say things how you want. Who cares.
 

Kilrogg

paid requisite penance
in french, we always called it "super nintendo"

"les trois freres" super nintendo

always remind me of this movie when i think about the name

sometimes (but rarely) we would call it "la snesse" like in the thread title (it was more prevalent when emulators came out)

"Un super... nain tant dos"

Speaking of emulators, I don't know about you, but I've always called ZSNES "Z.S. Ness" in French. No idea how I would call it in English though. "Z.S.N.E.S." is so loooong.
 
PS2, GBA and GCN are all initialisms as they do not form a functioning word due to the position of the vowel.

I'm not saying that "S-N-E-S" is wrong - just pointing out that saying "Sness"/"Snez" is also correct and significantly quicker for verbal communication.

Except SNES is also an initialism, not an acronym... Snez is no more a functioning word than giba/jiba.

"Un super... nain tant dos"

Speaking of emulators, I don't know about you, but I've always called ZSNES "Z.S. Ness" in French. No idea how I would call it in English though. "Z.S.N.E.S." is so loooong.

As the mod of the Snes9x forums from 2002-2006 or so... I always said both out loud S N E S. That made Snes9x longer still :)
 

NekoFever

Member
UK here. At some point in the early 90s everyone switched from "Nintendo" and "Super Nintendo" to "nez" and "snez". I'm still not sure precisely when or why.
 
Except SNES is also an initialism, not an acronym... Snez is no more a functioning word than giba/jiba.

Why is SNES necessarily an initialism and not an acronym and even if that necessarily was the case, why would it be an issue if people pronounced it like an acronym? That's not me trying to challenge it, I just genuinely do not know why something that can so easily be treated in the same way as say, POTUS or ICE is treated so definitively by people as wrong? Is that a question of Nintendo explicitly saying "this is the right way?". Beyond that it just seems a cultural norm as a result of marketing and/or pop culture, same reason most British people called it 'Snez'. The letters of S N E S form a convenient sound when put together, it's no different than thousands of other examples in common usage.

I don't know what line you draw for functioning word but it's the predominant way a product is referred to by hundreds of thousands of people in a place that just happens not to be the US. It's a consumer product, it happens all the time in different territories.

Feel like this is by the by really but it's also pretty normal for initialisms to take on the character of an acronym due to convenience and familiarity.

Edit:

No, because "Giba" and "Jiba" required you to modifying the abbreviation in order to make it so you can pronounce it. SNES is said just as easily as LASER, BIOS, RAM, WAV, etc and not at all like PS2, GBA, FBI and the like.

I happen to despise how Snes sounds when pronounced as a word, but it clearly fucking works in a manner that these other examples people are trying to use don't.

What they said.
 
PS2, GBA and GCN are all initialisms as they do not form a functioning word due to the position of the vowel.

I'm not saying that "S-N-E-S" is wrong - just pointing out that saying "Sness"/"Snez" is also correct and significantly quicker for verbal communication.


SQL is generally pronounced "see-quel."
HMMW-V is pronounced "hum-vee."
SCSCI is pronounced "scuzzy."
Most people spell out H-I-V instead of saying "hiv."
Most people spell out S-A-S instead of saying "sass."
Most people spell out C-E-O instead of saying "See-yo."

There's no actual rule about this.
 

Synth

Member
Except SNES is also an initialism, not an acronym... Snez is no more a functioning word than giba/jiba.

No, because "Giba" and "Jiba" required you to modify the abbreviation in order to make it so you can pronounce it. SNES is said just as easily as LASER, BIOS, RAM, WAV, etc and not at all like PS2, GBA, FBI and the like.

I happen to despise how Snes sounds when pronounced as a word, but it clearly fucking works in a manner that these other examples people are trying to use don't.
 

karl_87

Neo Member
Nearly everyone in the UK says "SNEZ" and always has been, even when it was current. It was only when i started watching youtube videos nearly 2 decades later that I heard people say it differently. So I'm afraid your theory is wrong.
 

Mathieran

Banned
When the titled changed I thought there must have been a thread backfire. Oh well.

OT: I say Super Nintendo but I don't really care what anyone calls it as long as people know what you're talking about.
 

wetflame

Pizza Dog
Why is SNES necessarily an initialism and not an acronym and even if that necessarily was the case, why would it be an issue if people pronounced it like an acronym?

I don't know what line you draw for functioning word but it's the predominant way a product is referred to by hundreds of thousands of people in a place that just happens not to be the US. It's a consumer product, it happens all the time in different territories.

Feel like this is by the by really but it's also pretty normal for initialisms to take on the character of an acronym due to convenience and familiarity. Like POTUS or ICE.

There's also things like GIF, SIM, Laser, Radar, Scuba etc that are acronyms which have become words over time.
 
From the UK. Depending on where you're from it's either the Snes or the Snez. It's just accent's, innit? I said Snez as a kid but as an adult, although my accents not changed, I'll alternate between Snes and Snez.
 

XaosWolf

Member
Except SNES is also an initialism, not an acronym... Snez is no more a functioning word than giba/jiba.

SNES is an abbreviation that can be pronounced as both an initialism and an acronym. It is a functioning word because of the vowel in the middle. Falls in line with other acronyms like my examples laser, SWAT and also NASA, ASAP, AWOL, LOL. They could all be pronounced as initialisms too.

GBA defaults to initialism because there is no vowel in the middle to make it easily pronounceable. Which falls in line with other abbreviations such as FBI, CIA, FYI, BBC.

SQL is generally pronounced "see-quel."
HMMW-V is pronounced "hum-vee."
SCSCI is pronounced "scuzzy."
Most people spell out H-I-V instead of saying "hiv."
Most people spell out S-A-S instead of saying "sass."
Most people spell out C-E-O instead of saying "See-yo."

There's no actual rule about this.

I didn't say there was a rule. One of the reasons there is such confusion is because its not fixed.
And SQL being pronounced Sequel actually has a reason. (It used to be an acronym of Structured English Query Language)
 

Timbuktu

Member
超任

The NES was referred to as 紅白機, or the red and white machine.

edit: sorry. just realised you said 'english speaking parts of the world.'
 

The_Lump

Banned
I'm 30+ from UK. I and literally everyone I knew at the time called them NES (pronounced Nezz) and SNES (pronounced Snezz).

Whatcha got OP?

:p

I'm sure this argument would have gone down very well in U.K. playgrounds, renowned for their appreciation of correct grammar. Christ, wearing the wrong trainers was tantamount to a kicking at my school in 1991, let alone lecturing the rest of the kids on how to pronounce something they either loved or hated with a passion :D

It followed on from pronunciation of 'NES' as 'NEZ', which I don't remember anyone saying as 'NESS'. Maybe because Loch Ness is what 'ness' means to U.K. kids and it looked shorter than that, hence the harsh 'z'. Stuff that catches on isn't always right, which is why shitloads of memes continue to exist, I suppose.

Well put. Ness was a Loch monster from Scotland and laterly a Nintendo character from Earthbound.

And pronouncing Snez as 'Sness' would have been offence worthy of several months of ridicule in my schools (grew up in Yorkshire then Channel Islands)
 
Top Bottom