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GIF Becomes Word of the Year 2012
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."
It's 25 years old. How can it be the word of this year?
Who even uses GIF anymore?
It's been obsoleted by PNG for more thanlike 15 years now. They could just as well choose floppy.
Pronunciation: /jif, gif/
The OED describes, not prescribes.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
No, it make sense, because it's the Jiraffics Interchange Format.
I read the internet for the articles.
YES! Now I can say "jif" and NOBODY CAN DO ANYTHING ABOUT IT! The world shall soon be mine!
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
Silence is a state of mime.
I say GIZ would be a nice format for zlibbed gif. it would also ease the use as a verb.
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...
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
What's going to be Word of the Year for 2013? "RealPlayer"?
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
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, "
"Long time listener, first time caller."
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.
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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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.
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".