How do you pronounce MOC, AFOL?

[Brickthing]

I pronounce MOC as Mock, and AFOL as Ay-ef-oh-el. Although they're both accronyms, I use MOC a lot more often than AFOL, so it's easier to say mock that Em-Oh-See everytime. As for AFOL, I don't say it enough to shorten it.

[CP5670]

I say mock and a-fol. I actually used to say the former as M O C until last year, when I heard everyone saying mock at the Brickfair event and started doing so myself after a while.

[Peppermint_M]

MOC rhymes with sock and I often have to explain its not the word mock...

AFOL is Ay eF Oh eL because any other way would sound silly

[Hinckley]

I'm the total opposite of you, Peppermint. Em-Oh-See and Ayfole.

[KimT]

"Phonetics, we need some phonetics over here!"

It's all a question of positioning and stops

[eti]

When was the last time you heard an alien abductee say he was take aboard a oofoh?

Exactly that is why I find this topic interesting. Of course I pronounce 'ufo' like a two-syllable word. Everyone does. At least, here in Holland... we tend to pronounce acronyms as words whenever possible. I know that English has this tendency to still pronounce them as letters so that's why I had been wondering whether English speaking people pronounce MOC as M-O-C. (I've only ever spoken to Dutch and Germans AFOLs in real life). Yes, I say Mockpages too...

I think Burps were called like that intentionally, same as 'poop', so those will definitely be pronounced as words by most people.

About AFOL: I pronounce it AY-foll with the stress on AY, so it rhymes with none of the three examples. In Dutch, I pronounce it differently: AA-fol (with the 'British' or European A)

[Peppermint_M]

I'm the total opposite of you, Peppermint. Em-Oh-See and Ayfole.

Differences in dialect. I speak what would be called the "Queen's English" (I was accused of being posh in school as I didn't like to indulge in local slang terms and I pronounced my words correctly) however American English has some differences, some subtle some not so, lol. So what sounds normal to one ear sounds wrong to another. (Illustrated by my uncle's Canadian friends who took a while to get used to the word "Fringe" instead of "bangs") Of course there is also the infamouse "Legos"...

This is an intresting topic, i am glad that it has been necrmanticaly restored.

[Ras_Al_Ghul]

I pronounce them mock and a fall. My mom, on the other hand, doesn't play with LEGO; her answer was 'a fool' lol

[prateek]

I'm the total opposite of you, Peppermint. Em-Oh-See and Ayfole.

oh-em-gee me too!

[pesgores]

Mock

Ay-fohl

[legobodgers]

Funny, I've never actually thought about this, I have just said M.O.C and ay-fol.

I'm new to the wider world of lego (Eurobricks, Bricklink, conventions, ect) so I too have never heard them pronounced by anyone other that myself and my family.

I first hears MOC as mock today and I think it sounds strange because it is already a word. Saying, I'm working on a new mock to someone who is not a Lego fan

would be more confusing that saying M.O.C as M.O.C is evidently an acronym. Also, if someone put moc in front of my and told me to pronounce it as a word, I would

pronounce it moss.

Each to his own I guess.

[Miss Kyle]

Haha, I came across the problem at the Eurobricks event - my first real life contact with Lego fans. I don't like the word AFOL, so I avoid it as much as I can. However, the word MOC (as in "sock") is wonderful for puns and wordplays.

[Legostein]

Hello!

This is a very interesting topic. Let me share my thoughts with you.

For me, the abbreviations MOC and AFOL are pronounced as a single word. Many former abbreviations are used as stand-alone words these days. Let me give two examples:

Laser

formerly: LASER (all capital letters) was Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation

Radar

formerly: RADAR (all capital letters) was Radio Detection And Ranging

I guess all of you use these example words as one single stand-alone word and pronounce it accordingly.

Some abbreviations, however stayed abbreviations with capital letters, mainly due to the difficulties to pronounce it as a single stand-alone word. For example...

DVD

was and still is: Digital Versatile Disc

HTML

was and still is: HyperText Markup Language

As in our case the abbreviations MOC and AFOL allow for single word pronounciation, I personally also do it that way, and I personally also would no longer write these in capital letters, but instead Moc and Afol. I think the more common and popular these abbreviations will become, the more will they be used as stand-alone words.

Well, these were my thoughts.

Have a great week,

Christopher.

[escortmad79]

M-O-C

Ah-Fol

[Outer Rim Trading Co.]

But don't "A Doll" and "A Poll" sound exactly the same as each other anyway?

MOC as in mock

AFOL as in ayfol

[cimddwc]

Well, I agree with Legostein here: What can be pronounced as a word will be pronounced as a word. So I say "mock" and "A(y)-fol" (or "AH-fol" in a rather German context).

Sometimes that's even true for abbreviations that don't look like they can be spoken as a word. SCSI for instance...

[-R8-]

I always used to pronounce MOC as "em-oh-cee," but then I got into the habit of saying it like "mock."

For AFOL, I seem to remember some place saying that it was pronounced "like a dirty word." Maybe it was the Brothers Brick?

[Edmond Dantes]

Mock

A.F.O.L

[davee123]

For the record, Matthew Verdier coined the acronym "AFOL" back in 1995, saying:

AFOL (sounds like "A FOOL")

DaveE

Edited June 20, 2011 by davee123

[gotoAndLego]

I pronounce every acronym by spelling them out.

[Pvt. Ryan]

I pronounce AFOL as Eiffel like the Tower

I have made my own saying for MOC that is pronounced "Moe Sobe Tvo" of course, that is a short for My Own Creation in Russian. If you run it through a translator, it will say:

"My Sobe GUT".

[Brickdoctor]

Fairly old topic, this, but I might as well take advantage of the fact that someone else bumped it.

I spell them out. Don't know why. Probably because I usually spell out acronyms written in all-caps. Legostein has a good point, though; maybe I'll be changing my pronunciation soon.

[badboytje88]

I pronounce both as one word so MOC = mock and AFOL = Ayfol. To outsiders I don't use any of these terms so they won't be confused.

[Tamamono]

I say M-O-C and Ay-Fol. Don't know why, but I've never quite liked the sound of "Mock".

[Niku]

But don't "A Doll" and "A Poll" sound exactly the same as each other anyway?

MOC as in mock

AFOL as in ayfol

I agree.