By Henry E. Smith
Many have asked how the new acronym for our society should be pronounced, and there seems to be some variation in practice so far. Although as a linguist I am supposed to be descriptive rather than prescriptive and our society contains many fans of spontaneous order, I suppose the adopters of the new name should have some input on this matter. And indeed, ease of pronunciation was one reason we adopted the name “Society for Institutional and Organizational Economics,” abbreviated “SIOE.”
Our recommended pronunciation is “SEE oh.”
This is quite easy to pronounce. It is also easy to pronounce in many languages and seemed to us the most natural for a wide variety of speakers. So let’s go with “SEE oh.” I think the Académie française would approve.