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What's The Correct Way to Pronounce 'GIF'? (thenewstack.io)
"Apparently we're all fighting about how to pronounce 'GIF' again on Twitter," writes technology columnist Mike Melanson:
I personally find the argument of web designer Aaron Bazinet, who managed to secure the domain howtoreallypronouncegif.com, rather convincing in its simplicity: "It's the most natural, logical way to pronounce it. That's why when everyone comes across the word for the first time, they use a hard G [as in "gift"]." Bazinet relates the origin of the debate as such:
"The creator of the GIF image format, Steve Wilhite of CompuServe, when deciding on the pronunciation, said he deliberately chose to echo the American peanut butter brand, Jif, and CompuServe employees would often say 'Choosy developers choose GIF(jif)', playing off of Jif's television commercials. If you hear anyone pronounce GIF with a soft G, it's because they know something of this history."
Wilhite attempted to settled the controversy in 2013 when accepting a lifetime achievement award at the 17th annual Webby awards. Using an actual animated .gif for his five-word acceptance speech, he authoritatively announced his preferred pronounciation. However, the chief editor of the Oxford English Dictionary argues that "A coiner effectively loses control of a word once it's out there," adding that "the pronunciation with a hard g is now very widespread and readily understood."
One linguist addressed the topic on Twitter this week, noting studies that found past usage of "gi" in words has been almost evenly split between hard and soft g sounds. Their thread also answers a related question: how will I weaponize a trivial and harmless consonant difference to make other people feel bad and self-conscious about themselves?
Her response? "Maybe just....don't do this."
"The creator of the GIF image format, Steve Wilhite of CompuServe, when deciding on the pronunciation, said he deliberately chose to echo the American peanut butter brand, Jif, and CompuServe employees would often say 'Choosy developers choose GIF(jif)', playing off of Jif's television commercials. If you hear anyone pronounce GIF with a soft G, it's because they know something of this history."
Wilhite attempted to settled the controversy in 2013 when accepting a lifetime achievement award at the 17th annual Webby awards. Using an actual animated .gif for his five-word acceptance speech, he authoritatively announced his preferred pronounciation. However, the chief editor of the Oxford English Dictionary argues that "A coiner effectively loses control of a word once it's out there," adding that "the pronunciation with a hard g is now very widespread and readily understood."
One linguist addressed the topic on Twitter this week, noting studies that found past usage of "gi" in words has been almost evenly split between hard and soft g sounds. Their thread also answers a related question: how will I weaponize a trivial and harmless consonant difference to make other people feel bad and self-conscious about themselves?
Her response? "Maybe just....don't do this."
Because choosy nerds choose GIF!
For those overseas or under 30, it's a play on the old Choosy mothers choose Jif peanut butter commercial
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
Wish we could downmod the article as Troll.
When it stands for Jraphics Interchange Format I'll pronounce it with a soft g.
Instead of wondering how to pronounce it, we should be asking "who gives a shit?" This argument was all the rage in the BBS days, in 1989. Today, nobody uses gifs so who gives a shit?
I read at +2. If your post doesn't reach that level I will not see or respond to it.
Easy, how do you pronounce JIF versus GIF, if you pronounce them the same, you probably have problem and are probably a Joat or is that Goat. Different ascents pronounce the same words differently, hence the recognisable accents. By the way, accurately, you are pronouncing it correctly if the person you are talking to understands what you are saying, if they do not and remember the intent is communicating with them, you are pronouncing incorrectly because they did not understand what you were trying to say, hence you failed at your attempt at communication. Proper pronunciation is for the receiver of the verbal communications and not the sender.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
Bohnett and Rezner just shed a tear, as millions of construction working animated GIF guys cried out in terror...
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
I'm an old nerd and I always said hard g gif.
That said, I really don't give a rip. Use PNGs (pings BTW, not puhnugs) and be done with it.
Please post a link to an animated .png
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/APNG
Have gnu, will travel.
It's pronounced like gigawatt. That is, with a soft g.
Circumcision is child abuse.
Well we are at it, we also need to resolve how to pronouce "lib", "bin", "char", and "vi".
"vi" is the worst. I have heard it pronounced "vee-eye", "vee", "vie" (like "pie"), and "six".
Sites like Twitter use the term GIF in short videos but are just hosting the thing in video formats like MP4. Since that's not GIF anymore, it matters even less what the creator of the original format wanted it pronounced.
I made up my mind a long time ago, in 1989. At the time, I barely spoke any English, but half my textbooks were in it. I had two professors who pronounced GIF differently. I just went with the pronunciation of the guy whom I liked more. Namely, hard G.
As an aside, most of the people whom I've met since pronounce it with a hard G, and know, just as well as I do, that the inventor recommends a soft sound.
It does not matter to me. I have yet to meet someone who insists on the soft G, and is not a pretentious wanker. I have never met someone who insists on the hard G. I would guess he would be a pretentious, ignorant wanker. The rest of us use the one we prefer, and know perfectly well what the people who use the other one mean.
Seriously, correcting people on their pronunciation? Do men do that to each other? My girlfriends used to do it, now my wife and my daughter are the only ones who offer unsolicited advice... yeah, my three year old daughter gives me crap about sometimes messing up the TH sound. She can't pronounce the R in three, but she can tell I can't get the TH right. :-)
No good deed goes unpunished...
It is pronounced like "JIF" the peanut butter.
Stupid jit.
Surely you jest. Everyone calls it "the six editor."
Kriston
English is defined, not by the originators of words, or an Academy, but by usage. English dictionaries do not define words, they document them.
If a hard g is the way it is commonly pronounced, that's the correct way.
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
Language changes with usage, so hard and soft g both seem to be reasonable conclusions. If not, we can always keep going back, all the way to Old English:
the Old English word gif 'if' (pronounced "yiff")
(from a completely unrelated article about entries for the Universal Coded Character Set that has, of course, bounced around the internet since).
Jif is a brand of toilet cleaner in the UK and elsewhere. Mind you given the taste of peanut butter I suppose it is possible it is just the same product repurposed.
Interestingly they tried to rename it "Cif" a few years ago but my family back in the UK still just calls it Jif so if the trend continues soon it won't matter what the first letter is, "?if" will always get pronounced "Jif".
Clearly you meant the Gews. The ones who crucified Gesus.
That's easy. I pronounce it "vim".
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
It is all connected. The "Jif" brand used to be called "Vim" in my country.
And since gif (jif) with a soft g is also commonly pronounced, then this is also the correct way, I'm sure you'll agree.
The presumption that there is only one "correct way" is a lie.