The Competition Entries

In no particular order, here are the entries. There was one entry on paper in an envelope with a stamp, which I don't have.

  • Steve Gilham

    For http:// I'd say "" (i.e. nothing at all)

    web pages are often quoted without it - when I was in Australia about a year ago, on the TV there were a number of trailer ads for "Toy Story" and those quoted an URL as for some promotional material simple as "www.click.com"

    If Australian kids are reckoned to be able to default in the http://, I'd expect us Brits to be able to manage it.

    www can't be defaulted (see e.g. altavista.digital.com - that doesn't have a www.)

    so for my home URL I'd say

    "dublya dublya dublya dot windsong demon co uk"

    with the co uk voiced only if I expected the hearer not to be familiar with the Demon Internet domain. I write it in full below for those whose newsreaders recognise the tagging

  • Anne Halloran

    For http - 'happytap'

    For http://www - 'happytap wow' !

  • JP Rohow (Stacy MN USA)

    Not the best enrty made: however, how about the "HoT-TiP" tracks"://". I know, what can I say... its bad. Thank you so much.

  • LaVerne B. Kehr

    For http: HET-up

    For http://www. HET-up THREE-wee

  • Stuart Peters

    In response to your pronounciation of http://, it's a bit of a dodge, but maybe it could just be referred to as 'Web Protocol', thus:

    Web protocol www.site.co.uk

    I use Netscape 3 (and I think both of these worked in at least 2) where: If you miss out http:// the browser adds this in front If you miss out www. and .com it guesses them, thus if I put 'apple' or 'microsoft' etc. in the browser line, I am taken straight to the right site.

    Therefore, I think it is becoming less important to have to remember 'http://' for 'newbies'.

  • Jonathan Marks

    At Radio Netherlands we also run a show called Media Network that deals with the Internet. We recently gave up on http:// by simply dropping it. We talk about web addresses as "triple W" dot, etc. If you don't know what http is all about, the chances are you won't be listening to the programme.

    Our site looks at our programmes and vintage radios. We're at www.rnw.nl.

  • Anne Halloran

    For http - 'happytap'

    For http://www - 'happytap wow' !

  • Bill Imlah

    well, just abbreviate "http://" to "" and "http://www." to "www.",eg.

    http://www.yahoo.com/ would become "www.yahoo.com".

    Some browsers are happy to conform to this already...

    PS. Thought for the day: "www" isn't an abbreviation for "world wide web" if you have to say it (count the syllables....)

  • Lorraine Kirby

    HTTP:// HAT-TAP DOUBLE DOT DOUBLE SLASH

    WWW WEE WAW

  • Simon Dobbs

    the main point i have to make is that web brousers do not need the http prefix, you can start the address as wwwdot or ftp dot, so i propose that this is dropped; simply saying "THE THREE W's dot revealer dot demon dot co dot uk" will get you to my web page.

  • Bevis Peters

    This is not really an entry for your competition, but most serious net users I know of (those of us who use the internet all day for a living) omit the "http://www." part entirely when quoting WWW addresses, since the vast majority of net sites start with this. Your site, for instance, would be refered to as "poptel dot org". Any serious user can predict the rest. I await with interest your results, however.

  • Czes Pienkowski (Dr.)

    (1) http://www

    http reminds me of short-hand for hot-tap, I suggest that we can dispense with :// as its difficult to come up with anything sensible and it is common to both types of address. www I suggest can stand for "with wet water" hence

    http://www becomes

    HOT-TAP WITH WET WATER

    This could be abbreviated to

    HOT-TAP WITH WATER or even HOT-TAP WATER!

    (2) http://

    On the basis of (1) above http:// becomes (since it has no www)

    HOT-TAP ONLY

  • Andrew Wincott

    May i suggest the word ''hiccup'', as a suitutable alternative.

  • Andrew Hardwick

    I normally just call it "aitch etcetera" becuause it is so common. It is normally enough since 'http:\\' is common. "double ewe etcetera" works for 'www.'

  • Jason Dobb

    My suggestion for http:// is: "Hit up"

    http://www. could then be "Hit up way three"

    or even "Hit up wee three"

    or even "Hit up woo three"

  • Donald Fisk

    http://www. is pronounced "huttup wow". I thought everyone knew that.

    http:// is pronounced "huttup".

  • Peter Denman

    Two entries follow - "whisky" is "w" in the NATO radio alphabet.

    1) "Web prefix triple whisky dot" & "Web prefix double slash" - indicating that it is the standard prefix up to the point indicated.

    2) "Hit tap colon double slash triple whisky dot" & "Hit tap colon double slash".

  • Richard Marsden

    My phonetic renderings:

    http://www Hatty Pewe

    http:// Hatty P

  • Rzepa, Henry

    For what its worth, most browsers (?) accept simply www... (ie the http:// is mostly ignored; take a look at some of the tv ads, which now miss it out). Thus the problem is largely going away!

  • Myles Chippendale

    The only thing about trying to come up with an naming scheme that can point to millions of different objects is that it's always going to be difficult to remember one particular name, either because

    a) it's too long

    or

    b) it's too short (try remembering IP addresses rather than domain names!)

    Fortunately, when it comes to URLs, God invented bookmarks for us :-)

    As to the best way to pronounce "http://", I call it "", not least of all because Netscape doesn't require that you type it in. It guesses that bit, as I think most people would. Many adverts for web sites (the real cultural barometer of these things?) are now casually dropping the http://. But woe betide anyone who gets casual about their gopher addresses in the same way!

  • Brian Kelly 
    > As to the best way to pronounce "http://", I call it "", not least of all
> because Netscape doesn't require that you type it in. It guesses that bit,
> as I think most people would. Many adverts for web sites (the real cultural
> barometer of these things?) are now casually dropping the http://. But
> woe betide anyone who gets casual about their gopher addresses in the same
> way!

    And woe betide anyone who makes extensive use of this shortcut when http is replaced (e.g. by http-ng or iiop).

    PS IIOP is, I think, the InterORB Object Protocol. An object-oriented protocol which can replace / complement HTTP. Netscape have said that their browsers will have native support for IIOP.

    PPS No, I don't know IIOP either.

    PPPS I've heard URL pronounced earl. I also met an Estonian at a conference who was making use of the "Veh Veh Veh".

  • Lou Burnard

    On the other side of the channel, I learned last week, they prounce it "ash-tay-tay-pay-duh-pwang-slash-slash-dooble-vay-double-vay-dooble-vay".

    And we think *we've* got problems

  • Joanne Lomax

    I've always said wuh, wuh, wuh and indicated the directions of the slashes with hand movements - it wasn't until this current discussion started that I realised how foolish I must appear!

    Thanks for the new paranoia!

  • Alison McNab 
    > I've always said wuh, wuh, wuh and indicated the directions of the slashes 
> with hand movements - it wasn't until this current discussion started that I 
> realised how foolish I must appear!

    And the slashes will be mirror image if you're standing in front of people. Not to mention confusing people if you're giving the URL out over the phone....

  • John Kirriemuir

    Gave up doing the http:// part a while ago (taking the small risk of confusion with a gopher-based resource) as newer versions of Netscape put the http:// part in by default, if you don't stick something in yourself. Haven't tried this in other browsers yet.

    John "knowing someone is going to rage about bad practise imminently :-)" K.

    ps: Watched a set of 9 adverts in a commercial break on ITV the other night and 7 of them had the URLs of their organisation at the end; thought this was groovy (though it didn't encourage me one iota to open the bank account/buy the car/buy the fizzy drink mentioned at all :-).

  • Alasdair Montgomery

    In Netscape, at least, you can type in part of a name (like "digital" or "playboy") and it will default to: http://www.name.com

    What does this tell us about the way the Web is heading?

  • Cresby Brown

    I think this lot is the definitive collection, have a look and see what you think!

    suggestions 1) 

    	HUTCUTS		HUTCUTZOOZ

	HUT 	for the htt
	CUTS 	as an abreviation for the slashes,  (there is worse to come)
	OO 	as a direct pronunciation of W
	S 	for the plularity of them

	: 	is left out because this is not steam radio, so we don't put "coal 
on" (ho ho ho)  and...
	P 	is silent (as in bathing) (groan)

    suggestions 2) 

    	HOTSCH		HOTSHOOS	-	HUTSCH		HUTSHOOS	(bless you)

	because fewer syllables are more likely to catch on.

    suggestions 3) 

    	SPLADGE		SPLADGEWU	-	SPLADGEWUS	-	SPLADGEWA

	because anything that doesnt sound like anything else in the world (of 
English anyway) has no baggage.
	Any attempt to phoneticize all characters will be unwieldy or result in 
silentizing(?) parts of the whole thereof(!)

    suggestions 4) 

    	personally I would refer to them as a HUTHEADER & WEBHEADER  -  part 
invention, part description.
	Which would reduce to HUTHEAD & WEBHEAD in any slang/jargon environment.
	Mind you if it had been at the end of the address I could have called it 
WEBFOOT(ER).

  • Ian Collier

    It is true that "http://" is a bit of a pain to say, but nowadays that part seems to be becoming optional (as you can see by looking at a random selection of TV advertisements which have web addresses on them). Some viewers such as Netscape will put this on the beginning automatically for you if you type an address into the location box. It seems a reasonable convention to assume that if you say "our web server at..." then the "http://" is implied.

    As for the "www" which comes next, the person who inflicted that on the world should have thought twice before he wantonly wasted eight syllables.

    What a mouthful! I have heard two suggestions. One is to try to pronounce this instead of spelling it ("wuh-wuh-wuh"); the other is to say "hexuple-U" which is rather clever don't you think?

  • James Bacchus

    I think that with the growing "intelligence" of browsers such as MS Internet Explorer 3 which find out the protocol of the host for the user it is really becoming unnecessary to have to say "http://" when giving out URLs on air. The user just types in www.bbc.co.uk and the browser happily goes and asks www.bbc.co.uk what protocol it is using, connects the site and then displays the full URL in the address.

    The only people who really need to pronounce http:// are those reading or writing HTML and whom, one should imagine are clued up enough to realise that http:// is really two entities. http - the protocol and :// - a separator between the protocol and the host computer. Now http stands for HyperTextTransferProtocol, so why not just say "HyperText" or "HyperTextTransfer" either of which is quicker than enunciating http:// and leave out what is really just punctuation which is not announced in normal speech so why so in 'CyberSpeak'?

    Which brings me on to my final point. I was pleased to here the email address for The Network given as "the-dot-network-at-bbc-[pause]-co-[pause]-uk". I can stand the sound of being shot at by people who spit out all of the DOTs like a pea-shooter after the @ this isn't really necessary as, like the ://, it is punctuation and need not be spoken, merely implied, just as are the commas when a snail-mail address is given out. It is of course necessary to announce the "dot" between "the" and "network" as there is no standard for spaces before the @ some addresses have dots while others, e.g. tomorrow's world have dashes "t-world". I hope that this policy of pausing for the dots is accepted throughout the BBC to make for more soothing listening!!

  • Grahame Fendle

    In reality, there is no need to quote the: http:// part of a WWW site address. Almost all browsers will recognise a WWW address if it is entered as: www.sitenam.co.uk. So long as it is clear that the address is in fact a WWW site, of course.

  • David Leefe Kendon

    Also I remember you asking for sujjestions about how to say 'http' what about 'hat' with a silent p. It's close to '@' (at) but with an 'h'.

    also : hat two stroke

    or : hat double stroke

  • Nick Taylor

    My suggestion is: "hypertext web"

    My reasoning, for what it's worth, follows ...

    Clearly, newcomers to the web will continue to require that the characters are spelt out one by one, so I presume your audience can be assumed to be familiar with the syntax and you are looking for a form which regular web users can readily understand to mean the dreaded "http://www".

    Unfortunately not all web sites use the "www" part so the pronounceable form really needs to come in two parts so that the "www" part can be dropped when necessary.

  • Cliff Dilloway

    For some time I have been using the expression "wobbly wobbly wobbly" for the protocol http://www.

    In practice those that I address understand what I mean although I always belive in entering redundancy into my computer technical speech and as the "wobbly wobbly wobbly" expression is not widely used I add some words such as "and the rest" or "etc". Your adoption of "wobbly wobbly wobbly" or some such as a standard mode of speech would render the redundancy unnecessary.

    I submit "wobbly wobbly wobbly" as an entry into your competition.

  • GesH

    Natural language has a way of dealing with redundancy. A certain amount is useful. The rest gets omittted. Like the verb in this sentence.

    By analogy, I suggest that the most sensible way to deal with all that web guff, is to let it be understood.

    So, for: "The website aitch tee tee pee colon backslash backslash double-yew double-yew double-yew dot rhubarb dot co dot yew kay" You just say: "On the web at dot rhubarb dot co dot yew kay "

    Strictly speaking that leading "dot" is redundant too, but it does serve some function. It stands to mark the start of the useful address, and it makes it quite clear that this is an abbreviated Website address, because "@" followed by "." would be ungrammatical in an ordinary email address.

  • Alan Mackley

    For http etc identification over the air just say "hit web!"

  • Mike Bunyan

    Most browser software does not need the full url including http:// and the basic www.somewhere.org is sufficient. However, my suggestion is 'hit slash'. but there are too many geeks out there for this suggestion to catch on.


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