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Tbh, I used to pronounce it ‘JIF’ (because in my native language, ‘gi’ is always a soft ‘g’, and I usually speak that), but now that I think about it in English, a hard G makes more sense.
In Romanian I also pronounce gigabytes as jigabytes :)
the creator of gif pronounces it as jif
Well, he’s probably better at programming, than language then ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I bet the inventor didn’t have a jirlfriend.
Someone should buy him a nice jift.
Jone and Jode save us!
By the Nine!
Lmao I dunno why but I find the bird puppet and jod combo hilarious.
The author calls it JIF. He intended it as Jif because he has butter fingers and like butter brand JIF.
I’m used to hard G though.
This makes no sense. It stands for “Graphics Interchange Format”, do they pronounce it jraphics too?
There are so many examples in this thread alone as to why this rule doesn’t work.
SCUBA: the U is for “underwater” and the A is for “apparatus”. We don’t pronounce it “SC-uh-B-ahhh”.
JPEG: The P is for “photographic”. We don’t pronounce it “JayFeg”.
LASER: The E is for “emission”. We don’t pronounce it “Lay-See-R”.
RADAR: The second A is for “And” (lol). We don’t pronounce it “Ray-Day-R”.The easiest “rule” is just the guy who made it up can dictate how they want it spelled and to pronounce. The word is made up anyway, and isn’t subject to rules that actual English words have been subjected to for however long the language evolved.
The guy that came up with with the acronym for unidentified flying object also wrote that it should pronounced you-fo but everyone spells it out because that is less confusing. So there is an example of the creator being ignored.
How do you pronounce JPEG? Jay-feg?
Yep, I take your point
Seems an odd choice in gif’s case still, as you can use the starting letter sounds from each word and it doesn’t sound weird.
Not the same for jpeg. P by itself doesn’t make a ph sound.
Good thing word coiners don’t get full control over word usage.
They do though when they are right.
I’m sorry, but he waited 26 years to tell everyone how it’s pronounced… at this point you can go with the majority, or stick with however you want to pronounce it.
I don’t really give a fuck what he intended. If he wanted it to be pronounced JIF he should have named it that.
So how do you pronounce giraffe or giant or gin?
How do you pronounce “graphic”?
How do you pronounce “underwater?” (It’s the “u” in scuba)
Copyright concerns?
He didn’t intend shit. He just wanted to watch the world burn!
Yeah, I always read it as “Jif” then came the correctness police of Reddit and I was bullied into “Gif” by guilt.
And now some 8-40 years later, I feel anything but “Gif” is wrong. Help!
Help!
Absolutely not, I don’t say this often but those bullies did the right thing.
Do you pronunce it guilt or juilt? Okay bad question
How do you pronounce giraffe? or giant? or gin?
I thought it was at least jood.
He made the format, not English.
Ya and in English, we pronounce things like giant, giraffe, gin, etc. with a “j” sound.
Find me a closer English word than “Gift” that uses a J sound for the G
Gin
English doesn’t work that way. Man is the closest work to woman. Doesn’t mean you pronounce the “m” “a” “n” in the two words the same way.
English works like all languages. It’s organic and full of exceptions. New words pop up, old ones die, pronunciations change and differ between similar words.
Most people chose to say gif like gift. One person doesn’t get to change it just because of who they are. Otherwise celebrities can start changing things.
This is all like the Mean Girls scene where the girl was trying to make “fetch” happen and the other girl shot her down.
Nobody made english, nor is a language static. It is an everchanging result of millions of people using and evolving it.
A language that doesn’t change is dead, like latin is. So any rule of how something is supposed to be in a language is subject to time and place, but never absolute.
That’s my point. If everyone pronounces a word a certain way, THAT is its correct pronunciation. The first person to say a thing doesn’t get to tell everyone else they’re wrong.
Everyone started using the word “literally” to mean figuratively, so the official definition changed to mean either or.
Everyone says GIF similar to gift, then that’s the proper pronunciation. Creator has no say.
I know he says it’s pronounced “jif”, but I just don’t care. It’s like “gift” without the t
Say the word “though” in your head. Then add a “t” to it. Would you really argue that “though” and “thought” are pronounced the same simply because they’re the same spelling save for a final “t”?
The easiest “rule” is that the creator can decide how to pronounce and spell it lol. Taking English rules that don’t even apply 100% of the time to its own words and trying to hold made-up words to the same standards just sounds silly to me haha
There are no rules to how new words come into being or how old ones change.
If everyone says a word a certain way with certain meaning, then that’s what it is. One person doesn’t get to decide.
Let’s be honest here, English does not have that level of consistency. “Women” is pronounced with an “i” for christ sake
Because the a in woman is pronounced the same way the e in women is pronounced…
Probably that was originally introduced by some medieval swinger society, so they could say that they are faithful to their women and technically not be lying about it. When the church figured out they introduced the o as an i thing.
Because the a in woman is pronounced the same way the e in women is pronounced…
woman = wum-en
women = wim-inYeah I’m gonna have to disagree with you there, chief.
i always eas taught the plural to be pronounced as “wi-men” I also cannot remember any english TV show or so to talk about wimin, so where the second ibis explicit as an i and distinguishable from an e
Or like “gin” with an f?
Never. No.
Ginf? That’s a new one.
Oh come on, you know what I mean
No, you’re supposed to replace the letter, not add it, so “fin”
It’s more like giant or gin or giraffe.
No, it’s more like give or get or girl.
And British people made English, but they don’t say anything right either.
But the food is delicious.
Little ironic… but ok.
G in gif stands for graphics just like how P in jpeg stands for poto
Wait until they find out about scuba and laser
skubba
yeah it’s not “jraphics”
So really it should be pronounced “jfeg”
Gesus Krissed…
He did what now?
Krissed all over the sopa
Did you shampoo my wife!?
I feel that if you’re going to bother people who pronounce it “Jiff” because Graphics, you have to also say “Sc-uh-bÆ” and “Lass-ear” and “ray-dare.”
Don’t forget Nay-saa.
G in gif stands for graphics just like how P in jpeg stands for potato
FTFY
Hard G and soft G are both acceptable pronunciations, the only way to be wrong in the situation is to insist that your preferred way to pronounce it is the only correct way to pronounce it
Oh, except silent G. Silent G is wrong.
Gif you say so
No Gifs or Gbuts
Hard R would also be wrong.
I will never not smile when this comes up. Not because of the word, but because of Linus.
The innocent “what?! No!” :D
yiff?
nah fuck that i’mma be unapologetically weird and scruffy
life’s too short to give a fuck
In that case, yodspeed my dude
How do I delete someone else’s comment
It’s pronounced gif with a hard G.
When I rise to power anyone who disagrees will be immediately found guilty of thought crimes and sentenced to castration, followed by execution, in that order.
Think maybe you need to get out more
And how do you pronounce giraffe? Giant?
And how do you pronounce gift? Gondola?
The guy-ant ger-raffe jave me a jift on his jondola.
See, the one thing I consistently see from the hard g side is a lack of understanding of fundamental phonics. Like, say it how you want, but at least make cogent arguments.
This always attracts pedants whining “the creator said to pronounce it like jif!” and it’s like, OK, A) That’s an appeal to authority, one of the best known logical fallacies B) The creator of Mother’s Day spent over 30 years trying to get people to stop celebrating it, but too bad, I’m still gonna wish my Mom a happy Mother’s Day, you know?
I won tell you you’re wrong just don’t say I’m wrong for saying with a soft g.
^^^this. Nobody is “wrong”. Say it how you want to. Either way is fine. But get all cocky and tell me I’m wrong for using a soft g and you better be able to defend that assertion, because I’ve heard every argument for why a hard g is the only correct way to say it and they’re all bs.
it’s not an appeal to authority, if the choice was his, not ours, to begin with. Tons of acronyms have letters that are pronounced differently. It could be arbitrary because an acronym is its own separate word.
Divers don’t dive oonderwater with their scuba gear. And when they take a camera with them, they don’t get the pictures saved as jaypheg files.
The choice can be arbitrary. Since it is, the creator gets to decide. Like whoever discovers a new species of creature gets to name it whatever they like.
Appeal to authority is a fallacy if a non-expert in the field is appealed to. However he was the creator, does he not get to name it?
Don’t get me wrong it’s a hard g for me too but it’s not a fallacy tbh.
I seen a guraffe at the zoo!
But the g in gif stands for “graphical,” not “giraffe!” You silly goose
The p in jpeg stands for “photographic”.
So… “jay-feg”?
yeah man, just like you go scuba diving oo-nderwater.
it’s a dead end. We can’t pretend that “g” can’t also be pronounced as “j”, or that the words making up the acronym matter. It’s all preference and since GIF’s dad called it “jif”, I’m gonna call it “jif”. At least that’s based on something beyond my own hubris.
This is my thinking - as far as I know he actually called it that as a reference to jif peanut butter.
Saying it with a hard G because ‘graphical’ has a hard G is a reason based on something beyond hubris.
Just like jpeg is pronounced “jfeg”
That’s easily the worst reasoning for the hard-g considering how we don’t pronounce the letters of most acronyms based on the phrases they come from.
I mean it’s funny but of course you are objectively wrong.
Don’t you mean a jay-raffe?
And it had a gift.
Was it a gyro?
If it were gyf or gir, then it could have been gyro or giraffe. But no, it was a gift of gif.
Just pronounce it the way you pronounce it. I say gif, because in the uk we have a well known brand of lemon juice called jif so it makes sense to not pronounce gif un the same way. Maybe in other countries they dont have jif.
Well known? I wouldn’t say that all I’ve never heard of it before you mentioned it and no one in my area has either and we all say gif with the soft g. It’s a cute bottle for it though.
Really? Jif has been a thing since the 1950s. It was marketed to go on pancakes for shrove tuesday and thats always how ive known about it. According to wikipedia it set a uk precident of protecting an unregistered trademark product when a US company made a similarly packaged lemon juice.
They also sell it in green bottles.
We were literally told it was pronounced “jif” by the creator. Sorry if it hurts your little feelings
I’m 99% sure the creator was either being sarcastic, or he decided to be a contrarian for the internet clicks. “GIF” is an acronym that stands for “Graphics Interchange Format”. It makes very little sense to intentionally pronounce it like a peanut butter brand.
I’m also convinced he did that just to be an annoying contrarian back in 2013 when he announced how he pronounces it.
Dude likely never actually cared.
The joke at the time was “Choosy Developers Choose GIF”
Of all the arguments this one always feels like the absolute weakest. There are so many acronyms that are not pronounced like that it’s unreal. Unless you commit to pronouncing it jayfeg for the rest of your life…
actually, gif is an acronym. Specifically not an initialism. That means that it is pronounced as a single word (like “scuba”, but unlike “fbi” or “nsa”).
The pronunciation of the acronym does not have to conform to the original pronunciation of the letters.
Examples:
the “p” in jpeg stands for the “ph” sound, but we pronounce it as a hard “p”.
The “u” in scuba stands for “underwater”. We still pronounce it as “scOOba” not “scAAba”
So why is “gif” any different? Its creator chose the soft G for the pronunciation of the acronym (not its expansion), and therefore it is the correct one, simply because there is no rule about how it should be pronounced, so the choice was his. He made it
Yeah not everyone is from the US and had that brand. The soft g has always made sense as much hard g, especially if you say the words Gin or Gym besides it.
Contrarian when he said “choosy developers choose gif” (implying the soft g) in 1987? I think that precedes the internet debate a little
This dude gets it.
It’s SQL all over again.
The sequel if you will
🤣 I remember hearing that for the first time and thinking wtf are they talking about.
He waited til 2013 to come out and say that though, when he made it back in 1987. What he wants doesn’t matter.
The most popular way to pronounce a word wins; Sorry if it hurts your little feelings.
The joke at the time was “Choosy Developers Choose Gif”
he dead though
So?
Whoever invented all the words in that sentence certainly didn’t pronounce them like you do.
I mean, id pronounce them the way the creators said if they were here and specifically told me how to pronounce it 💁🏻
ok chaucer, lol. you’d sound weird to everyone else
I personally prefer Skippy.
Lots of added sugar, don’t recommend
Lots of added sugar, highly recommend.
Enjoy using the toilet paper wrong OP
I say it with a soft G. Fight me.
