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How do you pronounce civicrm when speaking to others? Is it "civi" or "civik-c-r-m?

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6 Answers 6

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CiviCRM: Sih-Vee See Ar Em

Civi (for short): Sih-Vee

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    ... and of course Civi being civi- as in civic and civil, not kiwi. Commented Mar 24, 2015 at 17:17
  • I've heard "SIV-ee" much more commonly but also "SIV-ih" on some occasions. I'd love to know which one is recommended by the core team.
    – Sean
    Commented Mar 24, 2015 at 17:54
  • @SeanMadsen At that level, it is likely to depend on your accent, just as some pronounce Wikipedia with three syllables and others four or five. I might consult conference videos to see how lobo pronounces it, but then, rather few English speakers pronounce Linux the way Linus Torvalds does, so take it for what it's worth.
    – choster
    Commented Mar 24, 2015 at 20:01
  • @choster Ehm, Wikipedia in three syllables?
    – Mr Lister
    Commented Mar 29, 2015 at 7:25
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    @MrLister For example, /wɪkˈpiːdʒə/ in some accents.
    – choster
    Commented Mar 29, 2015 at 15:00
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Sih-Vee-See-Are-Em. In a perfect Toronto accent. ;) https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/207687/how-are-you-supposed-to-pronounce-fragile/207688#207688

More seriously, as the CRM is always pronounced See-Are-Em, there is no 'C' left at the end of CiviCRM to justify a hard k sound at the end. So for me, there is no way to make CiviCRM sound like Civic-CRM.

Though come to think of it, Civic Relationship Management does have a nice twist to it. ;)

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CIV-ee-see-are-EM

(capitals for emphasis)

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Sih Vih See Are Em, but Sivee for short

Nobody looks at you funny for saying Sivee See Are Em, but like lynxlynxlyxn says in the comment on Shawn's answer, it comes from "civic": CiviCRM is a portmanteau of civic and CRM.

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    < flame > Ah, NO WAY are we going to let Andrew's regional Southern US accent set the standard here! </flame> The proper pronunciation is halfway between American and British English, namely, Sih-Vee-See-Are-Em.
    – Joe Murray
    Commented Mar 28, 2015 at 4:05
  • @JoeMurray - Just couldn't help yourself, eh? Nonetheless, I think we've adequately covered the linguistic characteristics of the name. Commented Mar 31, 2015 at 3:43
  • There's something nicely Canajun about that eh, eh? ;)
    – Joe Murray
    Commented Mar 31, 2015 at 3:48
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Start with Civi (however you pronouce that) and then speak the letters C R M (however you pronounce those) and you can't go wrong.

And if CiviCRM is too many syllables (or you want to get affectionate) shorten it to Civi.

I don't want to get all dogmatic about it but IMO some people mistakenly say "Civic C R M" (with an extra C) or "Civic R M" (moving the C from the start of CRM to the end of Civi).

Having said all that, we are an easy going and also a very diverse bunch of people from around the world, hence we don't worry too much about pronunciation and are happy for our name to get 'localized'.

Some silly pronunciations that I sometimes use for fun include "CiviCream" and "CiviCrumb" :)

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For local use I also use our locale's way to pronounce abbreviations and initialisms, in this case transliterated to:

TSEEVEE TSuh Ruh Muh (uh representing the schwa, Simpsons-style)

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