GIF Becomes Word of the Year 2012

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GIF Becomes Word of the Year 2012

Posted by samzenpus on Monday November 19, 2012 @05:06AM 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."

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silly by FalseModesty · 2012-11-19 05:08 · Score: 5, Insightful

It's 25 years old. How can it be the word of this year?
1. Re:silly by marcello_dl · 2012-11-19 05:15 · 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:silly by Ossifer · 2012-11-19 05:24 · Score: 4, Funny
  
  Yeah, GIF was so '89... or maybe it was '89a...
3. Re:silly by SleazyRidr · 2012-11-19 09:02 · Score: 3, Funny
  
  They still haven't added "gullible."
  
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  Is 1563649 a prime number?
Just in time by Arancaytar · 2012-11-19 05:09 · Score: 4, Insightful

Who even uses GIF anymore?
1. Re:Just in time by serviscope_minor · 2012-11-19 05:13 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  Who even uses GIF anymore?
  All the young people these days seem to be making funny little animated gifs of things.
  Quite strange. It feels like geocities.
  Now, while you're partying like it's 1999, please get off my lawn.
  
  --
  SJW n. One who posts facts.
2. Re:Just in time by Andr+T. · 2012-11-19 05:16 · 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:Just in time by bennomatic · 2012-11-19 05:20 · Score: 4, Interesting
  
  The best use I've ever seen of GIFs: If We Don't, Remember Me.
  
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4. Re:Just in time by jandrese · 2012-11-19 05:38 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  PNG tried, but they had no traction on MNG, so they reworked it into APNG and still had no takers.
  
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  I read the internet for the articles.
5. Re:Just in time by SourceFrog · 2012-11-19 05:44 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  If that's your experience, you're almost certainly using an inferior PNG encoder (yes, PNG compression works in ways that effectively allow 'bad implementations' to create larger files :/ .. one of the big things that held it back was a common misconception that it gave inferior compression due to a popular image manipulation package (Photoshop) that had a shitty PNG implementation. With a proper encoder, basically the only time GIF should give you smaller filesizes, is on very small images (e.g. 10x10 pixels), where the size is anyway usually maybe a couple hundred bytes (though this can make some difference, depending on the scale of your application (e.g. if you were tasked on optimizing the size of something that appears on Google's front page that must be delivered trillions of times), it might still be worth bothering to figure out which is smaller in that case, but usually the difference is negligible).
  
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A bit late by Hentes · 2012-11-19 05:11 · Score: 4, Interesting

It's been obsoleted by PNG for more thanlike 15 years now. They could just as well choose floppy.
Re:But how does it sound? by phantomfive · 2012-11-19 05:13 · Score: 4, Informative

I came to say the exact same thing, but I clicked through the maze of links first, and found:

Pronunciation: /jif, gif/
The OED describes, not prescribes.

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"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Re:wasn't this GIFF by codewarren · 2012-11-19 05:21 · Score: 3, Funny

No one uses that. Do you use "thou" and "thy" and shit?
Yes to the third one.
Re:But how does it sound? by jandrese · 2012-11-19 05:36 · Score: 4, Funny

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

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I read the internet for the articles.
Re:But how does it sound? by Baloroth · 2012-11-19 05:39 · Score: 3, Funny

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

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Re:But how does it sound? by preaction · 2012-11-19 05:41 · Score: 4, Funny

YES! Now I can say "jif" and NOBODY CAN DO ANYTHING ABOUT IT! The world shall soon be mine!
Re:Verb form: no by amicusNYCL · 2012-11-19 05:41 · Score: 3, Insightful

the issue is that people would thing do verb that noun in the first place
err, what was that?
First they came for the verbs, and I said nothing because verbing weirds language. Then they arrival for the nouns, and I speech nothing because I no verbs.
- Peter Ellis

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limerick by wbr1 · 2012-11-19 05:42 · 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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Silence is a state of mime.
GIZ by g4b · 2012-11-19 05:44 · Score: 4, Funny

I say GIZ would be a nice format for zlibbed gif. it would also ease the use as a verb.
Re:But how does it sound? by Joce640k · 2012-11-19 05:57 · Score: 3, Insightful

Those either have diphthongs or are bastardized versions of a weird foreign word (giraffe).
Do you have an example of a word that starts with "gif..." where the 'g' is pronounced like 'j'?

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Re:But how does it sound? by cayenne8 · 2012-11-19 06:05 · Score: 4, Insightful

Hmm...more important that pronounciation...
Does anyone actually even USE gifs anymore??
I've not heard anyone even mention them in decades for the most part...
Aside from the odd animated gif here and there, I've not really thought I'd encountered one in a LONG time...
Shocked to see it as word of the year...

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Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
How timely by wonkey_monkey · 2012-11-19 06:05 · 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 · 2012-11-19 07:16 · 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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Re:But how does it sound? by Ed_Pinkley · 2012-11-19 06:34 · Score: 5, Informative

Here's the thing: If you invent something, you get to name it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graphics_Interchange_Format#Pronunciation
" According to Steve Wilhite, the creator of the GIF format, the original pronunciation deliberately echoes the American peanut butter brand, Jif, "

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"Long time listener, first time caller."
Re:And also... by number6x · 2012-11-19 06:47 · Score: 4, Insightful

You left one very important word out of your list of hard G words: Graphic.
GIF is an acronym for Graphic Interchange Format, not for Giraffe interchange format. So the G in GIF is hard, just like the G in Graphic.
Re:But how does it sound? by Dogtanian · 2012-11-19 07:11 · Score: 4, Informative

PNG is good if you dont mind blocky distortion around your line art too!
Huh? PNG supports 24 and 32-bit colour- more than enough for anti-aliasing- and 8-bit transparency so you're either assuming that the limitations of GIF are those of PNG, or you're using an old browser that doesn't handle transparent PNGs correctly and messes up the background.

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Re:But how does it sound? by osu-neko · 2012-11-19 07:22 · Score: 3, Insightful

The OED describes, not prescribes.
All dictionaries do. They're anthropological documents, really. They document observations of an aspect of human behavior: the words they use and what they mean when they use them. It boggles my mind that anyone gets confused about that, thinking they do anything more...

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"Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies."
Re:But how does it sound? by wcrowe · 2012-11-19 07:26 · Score: 3, Informative

I'm seeing animated gifs show up a lot in memes lately. It's like a new generation has discovered how to build them.

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Proverbs 21:19
Re:And also... by pclminion · 2012-11-19 07:26 · Score: 4, Informative

GIF is an acronym for Graphic Interchange Format, not for Giraffe interchange format. So the G in GIF is hard, just like the G in Graphic.
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."
Or we could admit that that's not how acronym pronunciation works and stop being dumbshits.
Re:But how does it sound? by dougmc · 2012-11-19 07:32 · Score: 3, Informative

Does anyone actually even USE gifs anymore??
...
Aside from the odd animated gif here and there, I've not really thought I'd encountered one in a LONG time...
Shocked to see it as word of the year...
Even in 2012, animated gifs are more common than you give them credit for. People are even doing really neat things with them such as this (and I've got to admit, a 256 color palette is hard to work with, but they've made it look pretty good for the most part.)
I do concur though, it's odd for it to be the "word of the year" this far after its prime.
Re:And also... by cstacy · 2012-11-19 07:58 · 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".