LaTeX (/ˈlɑːtɛk/ ⓘ LAH-tek or /ˈleɪtɛk/ LAY-tek,[2] often stylized as LaTeX) is a software system for typesetting documents
Note the pronunciation is distinct from /ˈleɪˌtɛks/ the material.
But, sure everyone has to make that joke at least once.
this post was submitted on 23 Jul 2025
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As a long-time LaTeX user, I can confirm that there's quite a bit of overlap between that and masochism.
I was going to say I like the outcome of LaTeX, far more than the experience of actually setting the outcome up.
I love gimp
I love windows.
Oh, wait... nooo...
Once at school I wanted to know how to use Japanese characters so I search for "japanese in latex" on the images section. Not what I was looking for but not disappointed ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Curious, is anyone pronouncing them the same or does this only work in text?
I’ve not heard anyone pronounce them the same, but I don’t doubt they’re out there. Probably a decent overlap with the people who pronounce GIF like the peanut butter.
I guess I’m one of them. I’ve never used LaTeX, but I don’t know how else I’d pronounce that.
Lay-tech or Lah-tech is how I've been told it's pronounced, don't ask which one is correct, I don't know
IIRC its creator said it's Lay-tech
It's "Lay" because it's borrowed from / referencing "lay person" i.e. not a member of the (TeX) priesthood.
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The tex there has the Greek letter chi instead of Latin x at the end and is supposed to be reminiscent of a Greek root from which we derived the word technique: techne or τέχνη. The tex there is just pronounced tech usually. The original intention I believe was for it to sound like the ch in loch or bach but that sound isn't seen in modern English(generally even in the examples I gave). https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voiceless_uvular_fricative
For all the star Trek nerds: that's close to what the Klingon word gagh ends with. Gagh has a voiced uvular fricative, so just do the same without voice and just air and you'll get chi.
Not to be too pedantic, the modern Greek chi is a voiceless velar fricative (or in some cases a voiceless palatal fricative) rather than uvular. The velar location is the same place English pronounces the letter k, uvular is a bit further back, more like the French r. It's a little confusing because the IPA uses the chi symbol for the voiceless uvular fricative even though Greek doesn't pronounce it that way. In Klingon, the voiceless velar fricative is written as H (I believe gh is a voiced velar fricative rather than uvular as well). I think the uvular consonants are q and Q. Apologies if my pedantry was unwelcome
Hey I'm regularly wrong and don't mind being corrected.
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The X is pronounced “tweet” apparently.
I know how LaTeX is pronounced but I always read it the same as latex.
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I've always pronounced it "Lah-tekh"
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The one is nearly sexual power play condemned by a huge portion of society, the other is wearing uncomfortable clothes
You guys should try https://typst.app/
I've seen this floating around a few times but am too tired to invest energy into this specific hype train. What exactly makes it stand apart from latex or markdown (then pandoced into latex)? Genuine question. I think once you've found your way around Latex, the major pain IMHO is whenever you apply it for a new use case and need to find out which packages to load that are not outdated. Ah, and alt text for images. But AFAIR this is already mostly solved, just not shipped widely yet.
Pros of Latex I think are important to keep in mind:
- it works since ever and for probably the rest of all our careers
- there is an established community
- the codebase doesn't change on a whim
Pros of typst:
- It makes you happy while using it because it just works
- Packages are available in typst universe and you don't need to install 2000 Debian packages to be able to use it reasonably because most things are just available
- There are some super cool packages like that diagrams one, or that inline comments one.
- If you have an error, it tells you what the fucking problem is instead of printing 2000 lines of crap and saying overfull hbox 200 times
- There are many templates for all kinds of purposes
- Math mode is a bit different from latex but mich easier to remember since you often just write things out. Fractions are just done with /, more complicated things are just writing the name out. It's actually rather intuitive.
- The documentation is much better than latex, especially for the base language.
- It's fast as fuck. My bachelor Thesis builds in milliseconds. No need to build 3 times over with each being 5 seconds.
- Like overleaf? typst.app has that too. Local works just as well though. Language server for neovim or other editors exist too.
- It's actually programmable with variables and loops and conditionals and functions and all that if you need it.
Probably some more, just wrote a little list after waking up out of my head
Thanks for the long list! I'm not "opposed" to typst, whatever that would mean, just a bit cautious picking up new workflows/investing into skills that may become irrelevant 2 years later. But it seems that for my use case the main advantage are more useful error messages (which does suck sometimes using latex). I also see a potential new use case, if I need to use/create a new template, which can take some time with latex. The other points are not really bothering me. I write my texts in vim and build the pdf later, once the text is finished. Latex is fast enough for that.
I write my stuff in neovim with latex. Works really well. There is a live preview plugin if you want that too.
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Love Typst, and I hope it takes off.
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Funnily, just the other day I was reverse looking up what a symbol was in LaTeX, i.e. I had the \symbol text but not the symbol itself. So I look up whatever that symbol was in text, along with the word 'latex.' I think the search was 'cup latex.' Colour me surprised when I go to 'images', try and see if an image of it shows up. It was not LaTeX. Not with that capitalisation
I had a similar experience looking up the code for ⊥, I didn't realize the world has given a very specific meaning to the words "latex bottom"
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Venn of this is just two concentric circles.
Weird how this meme format is always 'man nerd' and 'woman normal'.
Especially when you read left to right so the "punchline" should be on the right I think.
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I love this meme because there are people who are very devoted to one or the other. And then there is the venn diagram overlap...
The local BDSM clubs male participants are like 80 % doing something IT related. The overlap might be bigger than you expect.
Please warn me of any sites with Latex so i can add them to my blocked list so i can only find LaTeX related stuff.
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Anyone else have any good latex quotes? Here’s mine:
“I don’t mean to brag, but I’m deathly allergic to latex.”
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