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I heard teachers say [cosh x] instead of saying "hyperbolic cosine of x".

I also heard [sinch x] for "hyperboic sine of x". Is this correct?

How would you pronounce tanh x? Instead of saying "hyperbolic tangent of x"?

Thank you very much in advance.

  • 2
    I think the moderators here are being far too pernickety. Mathematicians are human beings. When it comes to things like pronunciations they all have opinions. Does that mean mathematicians shouldn't come here to express their opinions or students shouldn't come here to find out what those opinions are? Some aspects of doing maths, in particular saying it out loud, will always be opinion based, it seems churlish to try and exclude discussion about it here.2016-05-24

7 Answers 7

15

Here are some pronunciations that I use with alternate pronunciations given by others.

  • $\sinh$ - Sinch (sɪntʃ) (Others say "shine" (ʃaɪn) according to Olivier Bégassat et al.)
  • $\cosh$ - Kosh (kɒʃ or koʊʃ)
  • $\tanh$ - Tanch (tæntʃ) (Others say "tsan" (tsæn) or "tank" (teɪnk) according to André Nicolas)
  • $\coth$ - Koth (kɒθ) according to J. M.
  • $\operatorname{csch}$ - Kisch (kɪʃ) according to J. M.
  • $\operatorname{sech}$ - Seech (siːtʃ)

I'm sure many people pronounce these functions much differently; pronunciation is simply based on preference.

  • 0
    @Argon, I wondered about csch, coth, sech too. Thank you very much for your detailed pronunciation info!!2012-07-28
14

I usually say "sine-h", "cos-h", and "tan-h" with the "h" pronounced "aich" like the letter.

Sometimes I pronounce "cosh" as a word with a long "o".

I guess this qualifies as an answer, instead of just a comment.

  • 0
    In "machine learning", in my experience (so, typically more at "programmers" than pure "mathematicians", & also folks fairly used to uttering variables & symbols), I've only heard "tan-h" (i.e., _/tan aich/_), and you don't often need to use/pronounce `sinh` or `cosh`. This seems to be more intuitive if you've only read it before, & never heard it specifically called anything.2018-10-30
5

I believe that in UK and the Commonwealth countries, the accepted pronunciations are /ʃaɪn/ (like "shine"), /kɒʃ/ ("cosh") and /θæn/ (like "thank" without the k). American usage may differ.

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    One wonders if it's ever been referred to as "coshine"...2012-07-28
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My maths professor Siegfried Goeldner who got his PhD in mathematics at the Courant Institute at New York University under one of the German refugees from Goetingen, in 1960, pronounced sinh as /ʃaɪn/, cosh as /kɒʃ/ ("cosh") and tanh as /θæn/, i.e., as shine, cosh and than with a soft th like in theta---the same pronunciation in three countries, in three continents, but 53 years ago.

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In India "sinh" is pronounced "shine", for reasons I have never known.
"cosh" is pronounced to rhyme with "posh".
"tanh" I don't recall hearing being pronounced; maybe you'd pronounce "tanh x" as "shine x by cosh x". :-)

  • 7
    I've always thought that in India we should pronounce it *[Singh](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singh)* instead...2012-07-28
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In your lecture, pronounce it "hyperbolic sine" the first time, then after that use whatever short form you like.

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My school pronounces them as 'shine' 'cosh' and 'than'. Where in 'than', the 'th' is pronounced as the 'th' in 'thyme', so a soft 'th' sound.

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    @rosterherik: As with the th in thyme, which is pronounced the same as time.2018-10-22