Pronunciation of "-" sign, particularly in Unix commands

While talking about commands for command-line interface, I sometimes need to pronounce how command should be typed, like this one:

nc -l -p 1234

I used to pronounce - sign in this context as a "hyphen", or "dash", or probably "minus". But recently I got the video in which woman pronounces it like "tak" (starting from 3:00). I tried to explore the dictionary for words like "tack", "tuck", etc, but still can't find anything what would mean the - sign.

So, what is this word? And, what variants of pronunciation would be actually correct in this context?


Great question!

(A coincidence of https://english.stackexchange.com/a/190692/8286 )

Just FWIW, I say "minus" like you ("l s minus a l") or often just don't say the minus. So, in the example I'd read "n c l p 1234"

IMO very few people say hyphen. I'd say "dash" is common, but I'd say "minus" is more common than "dash".

Purely in my opinion: what she is saying (a) sounds silly and (b) I've never heard it before.

(Indeed, since 'tac' is a common command, it's doubly silly - but that's just me.)

Maybe someone here has heard it before?


Explained! - Military usage

Ahh! A user below has explained that "tac" is in fact military talk for the minus sign or hyphen.

All explained!

Again FYI I have never, ever, ever hear this in a computing / shell context.


I'm the woman from the video. Saying 'tac' isn't silly at all. I grew up in a military family, so this was used regularly when speaking of a dash. Without getting into details, my father was in many fields where he was required to spell out commands via a speaking system, and they used tac. In school, we used 'dash'. Generally, I use tac when referring to commands as it is slightly quicker and easier to distinguish than saying hyphen or dash. I've never used the term 'minus sign' for a dash or a tac unless it's for a mathematical equation. I hope that answers your question.