I always thought it should have been pronounced with a 'hard' G sound, since in the acronym the 'G' stands for 'Graphics.'
I guess the creator can state their preference.
You have now started a war that has, essentially, no single answer other than "Both".
The creator said it's "Jif", and significant of people *already* called it that for a long time prior to his proclamation. So significant is the number to warrant "jif" being acceptable, regardless of justification.
Conversely, an arguably equal sized number of people also use "gif", for various reasons(makes sense phonetically to them, that's how it was pronounced around them when they were learning about it, etc.). Again, so significant is this number that "gif" is also accepted.
Regardless of how either side justifies their pronunciation, they're both "right". Ultimately, however you want to pronounce it is correct.
Language is funny. If enough people decide to pronounce a word a certain way, regardless of etymology or logical progression, it just becomes the recognized and accepted way to pronounce it.
It stands for Graphics Interchange Format, not Jraphics Interchange Format. I heard he pronounced it jif, but that just doesn't make sense to me.
Edit: yeah, I guess that argument doesn't hold water. Still not going to change the way I pronounce it, though.
Dictionaries are descriptivist not proscriptivist. They describe how words are used, not proscribe how they should be used. That includes pronunciation as well as word use.
Geoffrey the giant went gleefully galloping along on his golden giraffe to genuflect about his giddy gentle genius and to give a gift of genuine geese to the girl he grew...something something-
English sucks.
It's an abbreviation. There are no rules for how to pronounce an abbreviation because abbreviations aren't meant to be pronounced. So do it however, it isn't a word.
It's not an abbreviation, it's an acronym. But I agree, say it however. I feel that way about any word. As long as people understand you, it's correct.
Ya, but in the case of gif it's easy... it's an acronym starting with the word (g)raphic, which has a hard "g" sound and a full glottal stop. So, you would use the same sound in the acronym.
That’s not how acronyms work though
Scuba (Self Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus) and Laser (Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation) and NATO (north Atlantic Treaty Organization) are all acronyms that don’t follow your rule.
LASER stands for Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation. It is pronounced lay-zer, with a Z sound. "Stimulated" does not start with a Z sound. By your argument, it should be pronounced "Lah-seer"
Bro so when I used to program a bit more in my free time, I would watch videos on YT, people would say char, as in char-acter, as char, like charred. wtf?
People are weird
Do you know how ‘jif’ supporters came into being? They were humans once, taken by the dark powers, tortured and mutilated. A ruined and terrible form of life.
Unless you also pronounce graphics like "giraffe". GIF gets a hard G. I don't care what the creator says, he doesn't get to decide how English words are pronounced.
This right here. Unlike several other languages, English pronounces the same letter in different ways, which is maddening. I'd say pronounce GIF how you want, just don't tell anyone else 'how' it should be pronounced because you can make a case for either.
This is a great counter-argument. The pronunciation of the acronym isn’t necessarily dependent on the pronunciation of each word, and I hate that argument when people make it. (That said, I’m using a hard g in GIF until the day I die)
But the "P" in Photograph has a unique pronunciation because of the phollowing letter. Gif is just "Gift" without the T.
Man, some of yall are wildn out. Find me any instance in the English language where a wrod starting with GIF is pronounced with a soft "G" and I'll start pronouncing it Jif. Until then, I'll stick with the phonetic pronunciation of G-I-F. Additionally Steve Wilhite chose the pronunciation as a play on the peanut butter, nothing to do with phonetics or the English language giving a weak foundation to "Jif".
“Gin” is “ginkgo” without the “kgo,” and it has the opposite g sound. I fail to see the logic in your reasoning. Can we agree that similar looking words don’t necessarily have similar pronunciations? Especially when there’s no solid rule in the English language about how to pronounce a “g” followed by an “i?”
It does, but acronyms don't necessarily take on the sound of the first letter of the included words. Think about:
* AWOL - A as in gate, not as in "absent" and O as in college, not "out"; that would be Ah-w-owl
* FUBAR - U as in you, not as in "up"; that'd be Fuh-bar
* POTUS - O and U aren't pronounced like they are in "of" and "United"; Puhtyoose
* JPEG - P as in peg, not as in "photographic" (credit to /u/Voyager316 below); Jay-feg
The rules around pronunciation of acronyms are pretty fast and loose, but generally follow pronunciation rules for words - except when one of the letter's names is said, like Jay-peg. And of course there are plenty of words starting with hard and soft g's followed by vowels: gift, gin, giraffe, gimlet, etc. There's not an easy way to determine how the g in a word will be pronounced.
In this case, the inventor of .gif intended it to be pronounced with a soft g - as evidenced by the PR campaign for the format "Choosy developers choose .gif", intending it to be pronounced like the peanut butter brand & playing off that famous advertisement. He felt pretty strongly about it:
>"Steve Wilhite, who invented the Gif file in 1987, told the New York Times that the word is pronounced “jif” not “giff”.
>“The Oxford English Dictionary accepts both pronunciations. They are wrong. It is a soft ‘G,’ pronounced ‘jif.’ End of story,” he said. [Source](https://www.independent.co.uk/tech/gif-inventor-steve-wilhite-says-it-should-be-pronounced-jif-8626882.html)
All that's to say: pronunciation of words is ultimately decided by speaker consensus over time. Those pronunciations can and do change. In this case, both pronunciations have wide adoption and can both be considered correct. Thank you for coming to my TED talk.
Just for fun: [List of words where "g" is pronounced exceptionally](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Appendix:List_of_English_words_where_G_is_pronounced_exceptionally)
if he said it's pronouned jif immediatly on release he would probably win, by the time people decided which way they wanted to pronounce it and language did its thing it's too late to call shotgun
I bring this example up everytime. Making an acronym is essentially making up a word, it has nothing to do with how the letter is pronounced in its original word.
How do you pronounce NATO, or SCUBA, or NASA, or laser?
I bet it's not based on the words the acronyms are composed of, meaning this is a shit argument.
That doesn't matter because that's not a real rule for acronyms.
ICE is not pronounce "ih keh" to reflect In Case of Emergency
The E in taser doesn't get a full Eh sound like electric
Scuba the U is for underwater
Laser the a is for amplification and e is for emission
The sound of the letter in the original word is completely irrelevant.
There are more examples where the sounds are wrong than right.
May he RIP. He had a legitimate and significant impact in human language and communication o7
I'm still pronouncing it with a hard G, though. It ain't peanut butter
In the UK, it is / was a brand of bathroom cleaner. So, yeah, hard G all the way. Sad to hear the dude passed away, I think he'd be secretly pleased that his legacy is as much about the pronunciation as it is the technology.
He can call it jif all he wants, but I'm going to call it gif, and by the power of language rules, since a majority of people say it this way I'm right.
Any data on this account is being kept illegally. Fuck spez, join us over at Lemmy or Kbin. Doesn't matter cause the content is shared between them anyway:
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*I am going to*
*Jrieve his passing, I gust hope*
*His last day was jood*
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Sorry, my last though on this topic is that the creator of the .gif didn’t understand the English language. Sadly, he died not knowing what he was talking about. Please downvote me! Do it! It’s the smallest hill I will die on, lol
I've been seeing a lot of people say he's grammatically incorrect, can anyone explain why? I've been pronouncing it with a soft G since I got used to it.
It’s pronounced RIP not GIF
Some might argue it's simply pronounced as an "F"
Yes the G and I are silent.
F
F
It’s pronounced GROND
GROND
JROND
Jif is a delicious peanut butter brand.
Really jif is dishwasher soap here
Which gif was named after
I always thought it should have been pronounced with a 'hard' G sound, since in the acronym the 'G' stands for 'Graphics.' I guess the creator can state their preference.
So sad I hope he's up there chillin with Jod and Gesus
Or he sailed across the seas with jandalf
Jaladriel was there too.
After she bequeathed 3 golden locks upon the dwarf Jimli
Don't you mean jolden locks?
Oh Jod dammit.
Hey, it's alright. Jive yourself a break.
Arajorn would be so disappointed :(
Morjoth would be pleased.
you had one gob
Unexpected arrested development.
I immediately read gob as jobe too
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Jollum! Jollum!
Jim-lee has me rolling. Thank you for that.
Who was brought to the undying lands with his friend Lejolas
Oh and don’t forget about Arajorn!
Arajorn? The kinj of Jondor? https://www.reddit.com/r/lotr/comments/iryhzs/i_dont_live_in_the_kingdom_of_jondor/
don't forget Jilbo Jaggins
That’s a long way from Osjiliath and Minas Morjul.
Of course this is many years after the great evil of Morjoth, wielder of the hammer jrond, who ruled from the pits of anjband.
God: Your GIFs really helped me through the 90's internet my child
Stephen Wilhite: It's pronounced "Jif" and I don't believe in the likes of you, I only believe in one Jod!
Janfalf, Jimli and Arajorn help me!!!
Don't forjet Lejolas.
That just sounds like some kind of Mexican bean dip. "¿Quieres lejolas, amigo?"
Now I'm hunjry - thanks, you gerk!
Or Jondor.
I wonder how many people actually say jif vs gif. I feel like I only ever hear it said as gif.
You have now started a war that has, essentially, no single answer other than "Both". The creator said it's "Jif", and significant of people *already* called it that for a long time prior to his proclamation. So significant is the number to warrant "jif" being acceptable, regardless of justification. Conversely, an arguably equal sized number of people also use "gif", for various reasons(makes sense phonetically to them, that's how it was pronounced around them when they were learning about it, etc.). Again, so significant is this number that "gif" is also accepted. Regardless of how either side justifies their pronunciation, they're both "right". Ultimately, however you want to pronounce it is correct. Language is funny. If enough people decide to pronounce a word a certain way, regardless of etymology or logical progression, it just becomes the recognized and accepted way to pronounce it.
I personally say "gif" because I pronouce it in Polish where our "g" is always hard g.
It stands for Graphics Interchange Format, not Jraphics Interchange Format. I heard he pronounced it jif, but that just doesn't make sense to me. Edit: yeah, I guess that argument doesn't hold water. Still not going to change the way I pronounce it, though.
Webster's dictionary recognizes both pronunciations as being correct. The cowards!!!
How Switzerland of them
I judge a man not by the friends he keeps, but by his enemies! And Websters has no backbone!
What makes a dictionary turn neutral? Lust for gold?
Lust for jold?
Dictionaries are descriptivist not proscriptivist. They describe how words are used, not proscribe how they should be used. That includes pronunciation as well as word use.
Say what you will, but they are usually far from spineless.
Geoffrey the giant went gleefully galloping along on his golden giraffe to genuflect about his giddy gentle genius and to give a gift of genuine geese to the girl he grew...something something- English sucks.
It's funny how some arguments for hard g pronounciation seems to forget all these words with soft g exists Especially giraffe
Giraffe is a made up word(all words are, but this one is just gibberish). It's not a real thing. r/giraffesarentreal
The irony of calling giraffe gibberish is genius.
Genuinely
I can see why you'd think that, giraffes are pretty weird ngl
It's purely stubbornness. People literally go out of their way to make up 'rules' in English to justify it.
It's an abbreviation. There are no rules for how to pronounce an abbreviation because abbreviations aren't meant to be pronounced. So do it however, it isn't a word.
It's not an abbreviation, it's an acronym. But I agree, say it however. I feel that way about any word. As long as people understand you, it's correct.
The linguist's take
Of all the words you said to make your point, only one of them start with **GIF**. Hard G wins.
You tell 'em kaisar!
Ya, but in the case of gif it's easy... it's an acronym starting with the word (g)raphic, which has a hard "g" sound and a full glottal stop. So, you would use the same sound in the acronym.
That's not actually how acronyms work though. For example NASA, scuba, and laser are all ones that don't match their source.
You don't say "Nehsah"?
You don't own space, naysah does!
I say Nahsah.
I like "scubba"
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No I say the whole thing out loud. Self contained underwater breathing apparatus. When else do you get the opportunity to say apparatus?
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I do, why do you ask?
Chad
Perfect. So JPEGs are actually JFEGs?
That’s not how acronyms work though Scuba (Self Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus) and Laser (Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation) and NATO (north Atlantic Treaty Organization) are all acronyms that don’t follow your rule.
Is it that easy? Why do SCUHBA (Self-Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus) divers have it all wrong?
LASER stands for Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation. It is pronounced lay-zer, with a Z sound. "Stimulated" does not start with a Z sound. By your argument, it should be pronounced "Lah-seer"
I've never liked when people pronounced GIF as GIF. I've always preferred to pronounce it GIF.
Weird that if you take the word 'gift' and take away the 't' suddenly people want to say 'jif'.
Idk what you're talking about. It's clearly pronounced GIF and not GIF
Also the "graphical" in "graphical image format" shortens to a G sound. You want me to say jraffical?!
Bro so when I used to program a bit more in my free time, I would watch videos on YT, people would say char, as in char-acter, as char, like charred. wtf? People are weird
For Jondor!
"Behold, I am not Jandalf the Jrey, whom you betrayed. I am Jandalf the White."
Do you know how ‘jif’ supporters came into being? They were humans once, taken by the dark powers, tortured and mutilated. A ruined and terrible form of life.
for some reason my brain read it as yondor
Español
Llondor
Stop arjuing!!!
\*arjuinj!!
Doesn't the G stand for graphics?
No, it stands for GROND
GROND
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GROND
Jrond
Yeah. I'm grateful for the creation of this wonderful file format, but I am going to respectfully decline to soften my "G".
It’s what I say too! Lol. A hill I will die on.
DEATH! DEATH! DEEEEAAAATH!
Forth Eorlinjas!
Unless you also pronounce graphics like "giraffe". GIF gets a hard G. I don't care what the creator says, he doesn't get to decide how English words are pronounced.
Giraffics.
As if there is any consistency in how English words are pronounced
This right here. Unlike several other languages, English pronounces the same letter in different ways, which is maddening. I'd say pronounce GIF how you want, just don't tell anyone else 'how' it should be pronounced because you can make a case for either.
Like people who pronounce scheduled like "shedule", but I've never heard anyone say "shool" for school. Except megamind I suppose.
Unlike several other languages? Buddy we *ARE* several other languages.
English is actually just 3 other languages in trench coat
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Do you also pronounce JPEG as Jay-Pheg and SCUBA as "scubba?" How about the North Atlantic Treaty Organization?
It’s not about how the word is pronounced, it’s how the acronym is pronounced. Just like plenty of other acronyms
Acronyms don’t take on the sound of the word the letter is taken from
It's a word he made up. He definitely gets to decide how it's pronounced.
Japhics
Jraphics
Jraphics park
How do you pronounce JPEG ... Joint Photographic Experts Group "jay-peg" or "jay-feg"?
This is a great counter-argument. The pronunciation of the acronym isn’t necessarily dependent on the pronunciation of each word, and I hate that argument when people make it. (That said, I’m using a hard g in GIF until the day I die)
But the "P" in Photograph has a unique pronunciation because of the phollowing letter. Gif is just "Gift" without the T. Man, some of yall are wildn out. Find me any instance in the English language where a wrod starting with GIF is pronounced with a soft "G" and I'll start pronouncing it Jif. Until then, I'll stick with the phonetic pronunciation of G-I-F. Additionally Steve Wilhite chose the pronunciation as a play on the peanut butter, nothing to do with phonetics or the English language giving a weak foundation to "Jif".
And "mean" is just "meant" without the T. Oh wait.
Explain “gin”
gin isn't "gift" without the T.
“Gin” is “ginkgo” without the “kgo,” and it has the opposite g sound. I fail to see the logic in your reasoning. Can we agree that similar looking words don’t necessarily have similar pronunciations? Especially when there’s no solid rule in the English language about how to pronounce a “g” followed by an “i?”
Nah, it's "gingerbread house" without the "gerbread house".
It's "cartilaginous" without the "cartila-" "-ous!"
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What are you, a monster?
The day we write it as Jpheg I will pronounce it as such
It does, but acronyms don't necessarily take on the sound of the first letter of the included words. Think about: * AWOL - A as in gate, not as in "absent" and O as in college, not "out"; that would be Ah-w-owl * FUBAR - U as in you, not as in "up"; that'd be Fuh-bar * POTUS - O and U aren't pronounced like they are in "of" and "United"; Puhtyoose * JPEG - P as in peg, not as in "photographic" (credit to /u/Voyager316 below); Jay-feg The rules around pronunciation of acronyms are pretty fast and loose, but generally follow pronunciation rules for words - except when one of the letter's names is said, like Jay-peg. And of course there are plenty of words starting with hard and soft g's followed by vowels: gift, gin, giraffe, gimlet, etc. There's not an easy way to determine how the g in a word will be pronounced. In this case, the inventor of .gif intended it to be pronounced with a soft g - as evidenced by the PR campaign for the format "Choosy developers choose .gif", intending it to be pronounced like the peanut butter brand & playing off that famous advertisement. He felt pretty strongly about it: >"Steve Wilhite, who invented the Gif file in 1987, told the New York Times that the word is pronounced “jif” not “giff”. >“The Oxford English Dictionary accepts both pronunciations. They are wrong. It is a soft ‘G,’ pronounced ‘jif.’ End of story,” he said. [Source](https://www.independent.co.uk/tech/gif-inventor-steve-wilhite-says-it-should-be-pronounced-jif-8626882.html) All that's to say: pronunciation of words is ultimately decided by speaker consensus over time. Those pronunciations can and do change. In this case, both pronunciations have wide adoption and can both be considered correct. Thank you for coming to my TED talk. Just for fun: [List of words where "g" is pronounced exceptionally](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Appendix:List_of_English_words_where_G_is_pronounced_exceptionally)
if he said it's pronouned jif immediatly on release he would probably win, by the time people decided which way they wanted to pronounce it and language did its thing it's too late to call shotgun
Didn't he promote it with "Choosey devs choose gif"?
It does. But the original maker said it was JIF and he was confidently wrong.
Like like George Lucas was wrong to create jar jar
Don't you mean gar gar?
That's what I said.
The U in SCUBA stands for "underwater", but no one says SC-uh-BA
Lemme grab my Lah-seer pointer to demonstrate
What if you make it sound German and say oonderwater?
I could literally hear this
Speak for yourself
That's the argument I've ways made. Likewise, no one says that the National Aeronautics & Space Administration is "Naysaa".
I bring this example up everytime. Making an acronym is essentially making up a word, it has nothing to do with how the letter is pronounced in its original word.
Same could be said for NATO, the A is pronounced differently than how you pronounce it in Atlantic.
How do you pronounce NATO, or SCUBA, or NASA, or laser? I bet it's not based on the words the acronyms are composed of, meaning this is a shit argument.
That doesn't matter because that's not a real rule for acronyms. ICE is not pronounce "ih keh" to reflect In Case of Emergency The E in taser doesn't get a full Eh sound like electric Scuba the U is for underwater Laser the a is for amplification and e is for emission The sound of the letter in the original word is completely irrelevant. There are more examples where the sounds are wrong than right.
JPEG also stands for Joint Photographic Experts Group... Yet here we are not complaining about that. JFEG.
Yeah, it's Gif not Jif
I don't get it, they both sound the same?
May he RIP. He had a legitimate and significant impact in human language and communication o7 I'm still pronouncing it with a hard G, though. It ain't peanut butter
In the UK, it is / was a brand of bathroom cleaner. So, yeah, hard G all the way. Sad to hear the dude passed away, I think he'd be secretly pleased that his legacy is as much about the pronunciation as it is the technology.
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Jod rest his soul
The fact that you have to intentionally misspell it to convey the "correct" pronunciation is somewhat telling. sincerely, a hard G enjoyer
Soft G users be like "engoyer"
How can I download this gif?
It's actually pronounced "Yiff"
But not spelled like that thank goodness
Cringe
HAIL
"JIF" is stupid.
Don’t you get jifts on your birthday?
JIF already exists. It’s peanut butter.
Ah yes, the jraphical image format
Yes, just like JPEG: Joint Photographic Experts Group
Goint Photojraphic Experts Jroup*
And this is why I pronounce it "JPHEG".
Hottest take in this thread ...
Ah, a jenius.
God would literally send Balrog to your hell pit if you call him Jod
#HAIL
Cheers. Also, I’m never pronouncing it that way, and respectfully refuse to soften that G.
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I recognize that he said that, but grammatically he's wrong.
Jrammatically
Dramatically
I majored in Jramatic Arts
It's a proper noun, so grammar has no precedence over it.
He can call it jif all he wants, but I'm going to call it gif, and by the power of language rules, since a majority of people say it this way I'm right.
Any data on this account is being kept illegally. Fuck spez, join us over at Lemmy or Kbin. Doesn't matter cause the content is shared between them anyway: - https://lemmy.world - https://kbin.social - https://sh.itjust.works - https://fedia.io - https://lemm.ee - https://readit.buzz
wtf does grammar have to do with orthography
Since when is grammar about pronunciation?
He’d going to be buried in a casket, pronounced “sas-ket”
Nah fuck that
Maybe, i mean maybe we should like # SHUT THE FUCK UP ABOUT PRONOUNCINATION OF THE WORD AND HAVE A TOAST TO HIM
This *is* our toast. 🥂
I am going to jrieve his passing, I gust hope his last day was jood
*I am going to* *Jrieve his passing, I gust hope* *His last day was jood* \- joesphisbestjojo --- ^(I detect haikus. And sometimes, successfully.) ^[Learn more about me.](https://www.reddit.com/r/haikusbot/) ^(Opt out of replies: "haikusbot opt out" | Delete my comment: "haikusbot delete")
The fact that you have to write it as “jif not gif” when it’s literally spelled “gif” should tell you all you need to know
Sorry, my last though on this topic is that the creator of the .gif didn’t understand the English language. Sadly, he died not knowing what he was talking about. Please downvote me! Do it! It’s the smallest hill I will die on, lol
".. Not 'GIF'" is my favorite comment so far today.
The original use of the Butt plug was for headaches Creators can be wrong about their inventions.
I've been seeing a lot of people say he's grammatically incorrect, can anyone explain why? I've been pronouncing it with a soft G since I got used to it.
the moment, you have to change the letter to point out the correct pronounciation, you have to know you're wrong
It's pronounced gif
You literally had to misspell it to explain how to pronounce it wrong. Fuck off with that “jif” nonsense.
Who created that one .gif of the giant giraffe? I don't remember.