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GIF Becomes Word of the Year 2012

Posted by samzenpus on from the in-other-arbitrary-news dept.

mikejuk writes "GIF started out as a humble acronym 25 years ago, entered common parlance as the format used for web graphics and now achieves fame as a verb by becoming Oxford Dictionaries USA Word of the Year 2012. GIF as a noun has always been an all-capital letter noun. Becoming a verb has caused problems concerning the use of capital and lower case letters. The common form is to keep the noun in caps and add the verbal endings in lower case — as in GIFed,GIFing), However, an all lower-case spelling with the f duplicated (giffed, giffing) is also being used."

14 of 315 comments (clear)

  1. Re:silly by marcello_dl · · Score: 4, Funny

    It's 25 years old. How can it be the word of this year?

    Silly you, we had to wait 'till all patents on it expired.

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  2. Re:Just in time by Andr+T. · · Score: 4, Funny

    I thought gifs couldn't be fun until I saw this: http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_mdqahveJp01qdlh1io1_400.gif

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  3. Re:wasn't this GIFF by codewarren · · Score: 3, Funny

    No one uses that. Do you use "thou" and "thy" and shit?

    Yes to the third one.

  4. Re:silly by Ossifer · · Score: 4, Funny

    Yeah, GIF was so '89... or maybe it was '89a...

  5. Re:But how does it sound? by jandrese · · Score: 4, Funny

    No, it make sense, because it's the Jiraffics Interchange Format.

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  6. Re:But how does it sound? by Baloroth · · Score: 3, Funny

    I think everyone sees your general gist. Wait...

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  7. Re:But how does it sound? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    Giga is pronounced with a hard G? Great Scott...

  8. Re:But how does it sound? by preaction · · Score: 4, Funny

    YES! Now I can say "jif" and NOBODY CAN DO ANYTHING ABOUT IT! The world shall soon be mine!

  9. limerick by wbr1 · · Score: 4, Funny

    Some geeks wanted a way to make glyphs
    They named their new standard GIF
    Now the formats obsolete
    But tweeting the word is l33t
    And real dweebs continue to use TIFF

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  10. GIZ by g4b · · Score: 4, Funny

    I say GIZ would be a nice format for zlibbed gif. it would also ease the use as a verb.

  11. How timely by wonkey_monkey · · Score: 4, Funny

    What's going to be Word of the Year for 2013? "RealPlayer"?

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    1. Re:How timely by H0p313ss · · Score: 3, Funny

      Complete steaming pile of shit realplayer is longer than one word.

      While it is pronounced "steaming pile of shit", it is still spelled realplayer and therefore one word.

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  12. Re:And also... by cstacy · · Score: 4, Funny

    Laser is an acronym for Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation, not Light Amplification by Ztimulated Emission of Radiation. Therefore the 's' in laser is unvoiced and should be pronounced "lay-sir" not "lay-zer." Actually, no, that's still not right. The A in Amplification is a short A not a long one, so the word should be pronounced "lah-sir." But wait, the E in emission is long, so it should actually be "lah-seer."

    That's why one always uses finger quotes when referring to a device that I call a "Layzer".

  13. Re:silly by SleazyRidr · · Score: 3, Funny

    They still haven't added "gullible."

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