In 1978, Donald Knuth started to work on \TeX, which has revolutionized digital typesetting. He was working on his book ``The Art of Computer Programming'' when he was frustrated with the results and was ``shocked at the poor quality'' \cite[1]{hefferon}.


I want to take a moment to bring to light two things. First, the pronunciation of \TeX\ (and therefore \LaTeX), as it is an often debated in many university classrooms and libraries, and second, the origin of the word $\tau \epsilon \chi$, because you can begin to understand the vision and purpose of Donald Knuth's creation:


\begin{quotation}
English words like 'technology' stem from a Greek root beginning with the letters $\tau \epsilon \chi$...; and this same Greek word means art as well as technology. Hence the name TEX, which is an uppercase form of $\tau \epsilon \chi$.


Insiders pronounce the χ of TEX as a Greek chi, not as an 'x', so that TEX rhymes with the word blecchhh. It’s the 'ch' sound in Scottish words like loch or German words like ach; it’s a Spanish 'j' and a Russian 'kh'. When you say it correctly to your computer, the terminal may become slightly moist.


The purpose of this pronunciation exercise is to remind you that TEX is primarily concerned with high-quality technical manuscripts: Its emphasis is on art and technology, as in the underlying Greek word \cite[1]{texbook}
\end{quotation}
His purpose was to create {\it beautiful} documents for expressing technical concepts and ideas using \TeX, and the origins of \TeX\ are in both {\it art and technology}.


Today, and for the last 30 years, it's been the de facto standard for documenting the sciences. Most scientists and academicians know \TeX, and use it to publish there academic work and papers \cite[1]{hefferon}.


TeX: Art and Technology