Ubuntu is a great Linux distro and all, but couldn’t they have chosen a better code-name for the latest version!? As everyone knows, geeks and nerds are the worlds biggest obsessive-compulsive, nit-picking grammar-Nazis, and they’re also the ones (at the moment) most likely to be using Linux. So, why on Earth is Ubuntu 7.04 called Feisty Fawn and not Fiesty Fawn?

Out of all the Fxxxxx Fxxxxx names Mark Shuttleworth’s Canonical Ltd. could have picked for their all-the-rage Linux distribution, it had to be the (only?) one that breaks the infamous i-before-e rule, didn’t it?

‘I’ before ‘E’, except after ‘C’, or when sounding like ‘A’, as in “neighbor” or “weigh.”

 

Everyone who speaks English was made to memorize that as a child (well, if you’re British you would’ve memorized it “neighbour” instead, but that’s not the point ;), yet here we are: grown coders using software built on exceptions to grammatical laws!

Let’s take a quick look at some of the other names Ubuntu could’ve used:

• Fickly Fish
• Flaunty Ferret
• Flaky Frog
• Frisky Falcon
• Felicitous Flamingo

What wonderful code-names! What beautiful, grammatically-sound, alliterations! Maybe they just didn’t notice the grammatical misnomer – plus, there’s always next time. Here’s hoping for more great Ubuntu releases with gramatically-correct names!