Mark Shuttleworth announces the new Ubuntu name for version 11.10 as Oneiric Ocelot, no really.

Weird Ubuntu names

Oneiric Ocelot: is this the strangest?

Dreamy - an oneiric ocelot by Pelican

My opinion is that the oddball names for Ubuntu releases aid greatly as search markers.

“10.10″ is not a great differentiating search term in computing whilst “maverick” (or indeed “meerkat”) doesn’t often appear alongside “wifi setup” (or whatever) except in pages referring to Ubuntu/Xubuntu/Kubuntu/Edubuntu or whatever.

Too far?

“Oneiric ocelot” seems to be going too far in searching out little used vocab though – who knew how to pronounce or spell oneiric before this announcement? It’s literally true you do learn new things every day, thanks there to Mr Shuttleworth, I think.

Pronounciation of Oneiric

Another daydreamer, ocelot by Skrewtape

On his blog Mark Shuttleworth says

[Mark:] “The pronunciation is like “an-EAR-rick”.”

But dictionary.com tells me it should be oh-nay-rick and their sound bitesounds to me like  oh-nai-rik (in my pronounciation).

Given the Greek origins (the Oneiros, black winged daemons) I’d go with on-eye-ross and hence on-eye-rick.

So the only question remains, who is one-eyed Rick?