
Creator of the GIF says it is pronounced “Jif” - kartikkumar
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/10072420/Creator-of-the-GIF-says-it-is-pronounced-Jif.html
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LeoPanthera
22 May 2013

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Jaruzel
Doesn't make it any less relevant. I'm still arguing with people who are
convinced it's 'gif' not 'jif'.

I prefer 'jif' as that's how I've always said it, right back to when it was
originally invented. However, the pronunciation makes no sense, as it stands
for _G_ raphics _I_ nterchange _F_ ormat. the word 'graphics' starts with a
soft-g, so why isn't it pronounced 'gif' then?

~~~
mhd
Just reading it, without knowing the background, it's certainly a possible
pronunciation in English, and I guess you have the French to blame for that
(cf. Geoffrey).

"Mispronouncing" abbreviations and the like is quite common. Once usage sticks
around, derivation does hardly matter. Habit trumps logic.

Compare "char", C's monosyllabic mutilation of "character". Now everyone who
pronounces it like "car" (as in vroom-vroom) go stand in a corner, as
according to Dennis Ritchie it's either "char" (as in charcoal) or "care" (as
in TCOB).

One of the few signs of maturity that I seem to exhibit is being able to
control myself these days whenever someone says something obviously badwrong
like that (or pluralizing status as "stati" or saying "binary order mark"). I
hardly even twitch anymore.

When starting at a new company, test your co-workers that way. Say "squoll"
for SQL, pronounce char as "shar" (with a French inflection), say 6 for vi and
capitalize programming language names.

