It's been "lyve" mode for me since before I can remember. Literally. I've been playing The Sims since before I can even remember. I'm sticking with a-live thank you very much. First off, it sounds a lot smoother. Second off, the game is "lyve" because the game is currently going and no one in this world knows what comes at the end; apart from eventual death, which is a given. As stated before, 'buy' and 'build' are being used as adjectives for the word 'mode', and therefore the proper word would be 'lyve' but spelled properly as 'live'. But I guess, in the end, everyone can say whatever it is they want to say because the Sims community is not a dictatorship. To each their own.

There's a little logicality in both. but my logic is as follows.

going to build mode, going to buy mode, going to live(give) mode. You don't "going to live(alive) mode" unless you are saying "going live(alive) mode" which in itself sounds completely wrong. meh but this has prolly been said.

A few minutes ago I figured out that I've been playing The Sims for about 10 years.
Now I'm realizing I've been reading "live" mode and pronouncing it in my head as "life" mode. For all of those 10 years.

But here I am, casually sitting and burning out my brain trying to figure out which type of "live" it is.
(Voting wise, I put live as in give; like how somebody else mentioned, I went with the logic that "build" and "buy" are both actions, thus you "live" in live mode.)

Live as in alive because that's the adjective. The adjective means "not dead or inanimate, living." When you're in build or buy everything is frozen, when you're in live mode everything comes alive.

Oooh, shiny buttons! :D

TBH I never gave it much thought until now -- my game is in Spanish anyway...

Live-alive for me. Live, not paused. Like coming to you live from -- etc
Never thought of the alternative actually, u had me stuck as ---what--- for at least 5 seconds. ^^

this poll is proof that we Simmers have way too much time on our hands :D

I mean I know what they meant but, I never thought much on it until I read this thread >.> ....look its a button! *pushes*

I have heard sim gurus say liv for a while now, and I know they pass down "the lore" to new staff. But perhaps it was written down, the first guru misread it, and they ALL have been saying it wrong ever since. After all, we have been playing the game a lot longer than they have, we love it more. Why should they have the last, definitive word on the subject? Long live LIVE!

This guy reminds me of my 9th grade history teacher who would spell words wrong all the time but then try to cover his tracks by saying something that he thought would make him sound intelligent -- like by pointing out that some words were spelled "his way" in the UK (He mispelled "color" on one occasion and tried to use that bologna as a scapegoat even though he spelled it "colur" not "colour").

It's okay Grahmn because there are 600+ people who think you're wrong.

Truth be told, I never thought too much about it. I just assumed everyone said Live (lahyv) Mode because most of my acquaintances and friends play The Sims and even the ones who don't live in America pronounce "live" like lahyv (just like I do), so yeah. Huh, guess this means I learned something new today.

What is it we are voting on

to be fair, some of the foreign language localizations could help us "live-as-in-the-verb" supporters prove our point. i'd never even heard people were calling it "lyve mode" until this! i'm appalled! it's three verbs!

spanish, for example, gives us "modo vivir," "modo comprar," and "modo construir," aka live (as in rhymes with give) mode, buy mode, build mode.

any other languages have valuable insight?

John Berges ‏@SimGuruJohn 12h
Fake Guru Fact: @SimGuruHouts pronounces "Live" mode like it rhymes with "Five" ... and "Build" mode like it rhymes with "Wheeled."

I always thought it as live, like alike because you can pause the game like you can on live T.V..

Can artistic/poetic license be invoked in this case? I mean the word "live" has its meanings depending on the pronounciation. And many here have their own interpretation of "live" mode in itself and in relation with "build" mode and "buy" mode.

My wife and I actually discussed this once and both preferred "Live" (like "give"), again in keeping with the verb-based themes of Buy mode and Build mode. We joked that they could've made that their tag line in all the adverts: "Buy. Build. Live."

To us, it didn't make any sense that it would be two verbs (to build, to buy) and an adjective ("live" like "five"). However, neither of us would be the slightest bit bothered to discover that it should be "live" (like "five"), or bothered by any friends that use that instead of "live" (like "give").

We just love our fellow Simmers.

I'm from Poland but I play the game in English and I always assumed it was live like alive. The live like give option never even crossed my mind to be honest. And it sounds really weird to me because I used the other option for years now.
In the Polish version of the game you could either translate it as life mode or living mode. The other modes are called building mode and buying mode.

Hukd on foniks werkd 4 mi! :-P

From what I've seen, many translations of the game translate "Live mode" as a verb; hence the French "Mode Vie", the Spanish "Modo Vivir", and the Italian "Modalità vivi". So, I'll have to go with "rhymes with give".

I am from the south and although we do have some strange ways of pronouncing words, I never heard it called wee fee down here.

Live as in alive, for me, too.

Before clicking on this topic I thought I was about to participate on something really, very important. And now I can say that I was right.

I like to press buttons.

I never realized us simmers could get so heated about a way of pronouncing a word. MTS is great.

Now, what I want to know is how do people pronounce simoleans?
I've heard 3 different ways; sim-O-leans, as in bowl and "lee anne", simo-leans, with 2 syllables and as in "lean", or simo-le-ans, as in "lee-anne" but no accentuation on the o.

Does any of that make sense?

When I think in english, I go "sim-O-leans".

I most definitely go with "sim-o-lee-annes". Thank you for bringing up another little something I wasn't aware was controversial. Thank you VERY much. :D
-I was about to play the "I am a native American English speaker" card, but I've decided against it. Now you guys know I have it, but that I'm not going to play it. Thank you.

I always read it as live, alive. It's like, live TV, you know?