March 13, 2013

Do you say AT-AT or Aytee Aytee?

It was a Saturday morning, and I was browsing Twitter. I noticed someone tweeted me to point out a Star Wars Angry Birds commercial called an Imperial Walker an "at at" (pronounced like @ @). Being that I pronounce AT-AT like words instead of spelling it out at as Aytee Aytee I wasn't surprised. I know I've heard it both ways, so I decided to ask Twitter their thoughts on the matter. I don't know if you know this, but the internet loves to give opinions. I received 121 replies and the counts broke down like this:


Interesting, no?
My sample is not in any way scientific so take the results with a grain of salt.

A few sentiments came up repeatedly: people say AT-AT but spell out AT-ST, the people in the spelling it out camp seemed much more likely to say "my way is the right way and everyone who doesn't spell it out is dumb" (I'm paraphrasing a little), and only a few people were in the Imperial Walker camp. And a couple of people pointed out that TIE Fighter is rarely spelled out, only said. I happen to like the way AT-AT rolls off the tongue, so I'll stick with that pronunciation. I want to get the @ @ t-shirt.

What do you call an Imperial Walker?
at
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42 comments:

  1. Weird. I've never heard anyone say "At At." I've always heard it spelled out. Interesting.

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    1. Me too. This really surprises me.

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    2. I can't believe that. Ever since the 70s, people have said "AT-AT". That's the way LucasFilms says it is pronounced also.
      "An email blast to Lucasfilm’s public relations department provided the definitive verdict. The official pronunciation for AT-AT is the phonetic one, as in it rhymes with “hat hat.”"

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    3. Wroooong!! Stubborn as fuck.. On of the lead creators have said A.T.A.T. So nice try.. Don't let Disney fuck with your starwars brah. Here was probably someone stubborn like you up there saying the same wrong thing.. Get you life straight.

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    4. Wroooong!! Stubborn as fuck.. On of the lead creators have said A.T.A.T. So nice try.. Don't let Disney fuck with your starwars brah. Here was probably someone stubborn like you up there saying the same wrong thing.. Get you life straight.

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  2. It's DEFINITELY "Aytee, Aytee". I'm used to military phonetics and such as a former Navy Air Traffic Controller, and that's how I'd say it.

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    1. Steve ok Star Wars is not the Navy its a movie. Your young and most all the younger generation star wars fans say AT AT wrong buy calling it Aytee Aytee. I was there for the original trilogy when AT AT was said. The correct way "in star wars" is AT AT.

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  3. @ @ for me. (Which is funny because I spell out AT-ST).

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  4. We always said "At-At" when we were kids, because when my five year old brain read it on the box the toy came in, that's what it looked like it said. I am not militant about that preference, though. I guess that "Aytee-Aytee" is more "correct" or something, but getting your panties in a wad about it is not particularly productive.

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  5. I've always said it as @@, but heard plenty of people call it aytee aytee. As for the AT-ST, I've always just called it a chicken walker.

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  6. @ @ for me too. Don't really care much about whether it's correct or not, but it's always fun to pretend to be one of the Mars Attacks aliens.

    *hope I'm not alone in this*

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  7. I always called it an "Aytee-Aytee" until I heard a commercial that called it an @@, so I switched to that because I assumed that must be the right way. But then I remembered the AT-ST and didn't like the lack of parallelism, so I switched back to "Aytee-Aytee" and have been using that ever since.

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  8. i think i switch back and forth, but tend to use @@ more.

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  9. Aytee-Aytee.

    My way is the right way and everyone who doesn't spell it out is dumb. :-)

    Well, to be honest I can understand people who don't know that it's short for All Terrain Armoured Transport not spelling it out. But once I learned that it was impossible for me to go back and just say @-@.

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  10. I love seeing the variety of responses. I wonder if I should make a weekly Star Wars poll a thing.

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  12. Definitely "A-tee A-tee". Army thing, I think; secretly I want to believe that ImpMil's actual designation for them was something like "M-1187A3 All-Terrain Armored Transport (Heavy Armor)" (or M1187A3 AT-AT(HA)) and the stormies referred to them by their shorthand bumper number; "Private Atin, I need a 1040D on that Forty-seven A-tee by 0800 or I will facilitate your permanent detail to snowball maintenance on Mustafar..."

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    2. so in the Army do you pronounce a squad automatic weapon as an ess aye doubleyou?

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    3. so in the Army do you pronounce a squad automatic weapon as an ess aye doubleyou?

      Delete

  13. I'm with Robert, @ @s and chicken walkers! I've actually gotten into very heated debates with friends when I've worn my AT-AT vinyl cutout necklace to parties. I'm just thrilled people know what the hell it is in the first place, I don't care how they pronounce it!

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  14. http://youtu.be/0kK6Z4QiAgA

    I know this is a really old topic at this point, but most of us "1st Gen" star wars fans most likely get the "@-@" pronunciation from the Kenner toy commercials back in the early 80s where it is pronounced as words.

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    2. I'm a child of the 80s, grew up on Star Wars and I spell it out. "At at" sounds dumb. If fans want to call it that, they're welcome to, but I can't picture Imperial officers calling them that.

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  15. It should be spelled out, just as AT-ST, AT-PT, and AT-TE are. Try and imagine how stupid and silly an Imperial commander, Darth Vader, or the Emperor would sound saying "Deploy the at ats!!!".

    If it's supposed to be "at at", then the other Imperial walkers should be "at stuh", "at ptuh", and "at teh", all of which sound astonishingly stupid for military vehicle designations.

    Oh and if the Kenner commercials pronounced it "at at", then they are wrong.

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    1. Thread necro!

      There's a flaw in that logic though. Tie Fighters are Twin Ion Engined fighters but no-one pronounces that as tee aye ee fighter. Everyone pronounces it phonetically.

      So yeah, being old school I pronounce it @-@

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    2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=30&v=yEWeFeAsnhk
      Enough said.

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    3. https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=30&v=yEWeFeAsnhk
      Enough said.

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    4. I'll tell you who's the authority on this: kids who actually grew up at the time Empire and Jedi came out.

      Pretty much universally, we called the four legged walkers "att-atts", and the two legged walkers "scout walkers". I think that Lucasfilm and/or Kenner described/marketed them as such. We knew what the letters stood for (i.e. AT-AT and AT-ST) but these were the common parlance terms. Nobody said "ay-tee ay-tee".

      Any kids from Gen Y or beyond can use whatever pronunciations they like, so long as they realize that they have no dominion in these matters.

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    5. I'll tell you who's the authority on this: kids who actually grew up at the time Empire and Jedi came out.

      Pretty much universally, we called the four legged walkers "att-atts", and the two legged walkers "scout walkers". I think that Lucasfilm and/or Kenner described/marketed them as such. We knew what the letters stood for (i.e. AT-AT and AT-ST) but these were the common parlance terms. Nobody said "ay-tee ay-tee".

      Any kids from Gen Y or beyond can use whatever pronunciations they like, so long as they realize that they have no dominion in these matters.

      Delete

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    ReplyDelete

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    ReplyDelete

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  25. I wonder if I should make a weekly Star Wars poll a thing.
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