
Father of GIFs: 'It's Pronounced JIF' - vanni
http://mashable.com/2013/05/21/jif-not-gifs-pronunciation-steve-wilhite/
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pud
Words change. That's how language works.

Society agrees it's pronounced "gif", it's pronounced "gif".

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Descriptive_linguistics>

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nitrogen
The hard G pronunciation probably comes from its similar spelling to the word
"gift."

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greenyoda
Also, the G in GIF stands for "Graphics", which has a hard G sound.

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Metapony
This has always been my thought on the matter. I am surprised there's a
controversy. The only times I've heard it pronounced 'jif' is by people unsure
of the pronunciation and quickly corrected.

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darkchasma
How embarassing for him, he doesn't even know how to pronounce his own
technology.

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downandout
I wasn't even aware that this was up for debate. I've pronounced it with a "j"
since I had a 1200 baud modem dialing up to BBS's. That's just...how it's
pronounced.

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GuiA
I wasn't even aware that this was up for debate. I've pronounced it with a "g"
since I had an IMP dialing up to Arpanet. That's just...how it's pronounced.

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dsl
Every time I got sad that my DecWriter II couldn't display them, I screamed
"Curse you GIF!" with a G sound.

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oneeyedpigeon
Sorry, after 25 years of pronouncing it the way it's spelt, "GIF" is too
ingrained - I simply cannot pronounce it any other way.

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gagege
I don't know why, but I've always said 'jif'. 'gif' sounds so wrong to me.

Same with Quake players saying 'gibbed' instead of 'jibbed'. The 'G' sounds
makes me throw up a little.

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oneeyedpigeon
There was a brand of kitchen cleaner marketed in my country as Jif, since
renamed Cif. I think most people in the UK favour the hard G for the file
format, because invoking images of kitchen cleaner when you're discussing
image files is just a distraction :-)

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riffraff
oh, Cif is an english name? How do you pronounce _that_ ?

I am under the impression there aren't many words starting with "ci" in
english but I think they mostly sound like "see" (e.g. circuit).

Of course, for me it's pronounced as "cheef", which goes perfectly with "jeef"
:)

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oneeyedpigeon
No, I think it's a 'European' name: I.e. it was branded Cif across Europe, and
only Jif in Britain, until recently. I'm not sure of the specific origin of
the name; either way, it's pronounced the same way as the start of the word
"sit"

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bluthru
"I'd like a gin and tonic."

"It's pronounced 'jin'."

"WHAT?! I DON'T CARE! I'LL DO WHAT I WANT!"

(If people were irrational about a similar word's pronunciation.)

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donutdan4114
GIF is an acronym. GIF stands for Graphics Interchange Format. The word
__graphics __starts with a "g" that sounds like gurgle, good, golf,
gallbladder, gun, grapes, etc... NOT giraffe. Thus, it _should_ be pronounce
"giff". The inventor of GIF made a format, but he didn't invent acronyms.
Pronouncing it like "jiff" would be like pronouncing GIF like "fignewtons". It
doesn't make sense.

Giff4life.

~~~
bluthru
As stated elsewhere...

Acronyms don't strictly take on the pronunciation of their constructive words.
SCUBA, POTUS, NASA, etc. all deviate from the phonetics of the words used to
construct the acronym.

Why do people take this so personally?

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jlgreco
> _Why do people take this so personally?_

This is not really about an image format. Linguistic prescriptivism is the
real issue.

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waterlesscloud
Or people could just say "Oh, I was wrong" and adjust...

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jlgreco
> wrong

They are only "wrong" if you subscribe to prescriptivism... The issue, and the
objections being raised by many, are not limited to this particular word. Did
you read my post? it was not long.

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jwheeler79
This is a simple one: if he wanted it pronounced 'JIF', he shouldn't have
spelled it GIF.

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wwweston
Or called it the Jraffics Interchange File.

Or Giraffeics, that would work too.

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Yaa101
He should have called it .jif then

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ByronT
Jraphics?

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mdip
Pronunciation of words I nearly exclusively see in print is a big frustration
of mine.

I remember a decade ago trying to figure out if Linux was pronounced "Lih-nux"
or "Lye-nux". I had originally assumed it was the latter because of the way I
assume Linus Torvalds pronounces his name (I'm not so clear on that even), but
found a write-up on the web where he cleared it up (and don't even get me
started on Guh-New-Slash-Lih-Nux). Then lets go for SQL (es-queue-ell or
sequel?), SCSI (very few would have guessed "scuzzy" if they hadn't already
heard someone say it), my personal favorite "PWN" (I'm still not clear on
that).

I'm a non-JIF GIF pronouncer. I know how it's supposed to be pronounced, but
it had been part of my vocabulary for almost a decade before I discovered the
right pronunciation. And in North America, JIF is a very well advertised brand
of peanut-butter.

    
    
         Person A: Can you send me that JIF?
         Person B: Sure (heads to fridge)
    

I doubt I will ever say this (or even want to say this) correctly.

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breadbox
The parallels with "gigga" vs "jigga" (for the pronunciation of the metric
prefix) are striking. I've met a couple of people recently who weren't even
aware of the 2nd pronunciation, and a lot of the people who are don't realize
that both pronunciations are accepted.

~~~
softbuilder
Wait, so Doc Brown's 1.28 jigawatts is legit?

~~~
sp332
Yeah, it's an option. <https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/giga->

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vec
Off topic, but 5 words? I know external constraints force creativity and all
that, but there's just not that much one can actually say in 5 words. Besides,
wouldn't 130 characters (~20 english words) have been more in keeping with the
spirit of the evening?

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kmm
I realize it's a joke (or I hope so) but it's really not up to him to decide.
Language is one of the most democratic things we know, without totalitarian
oppression, you can't really change the pronunciation of a word.

~~~
bluthru
It's more like the father of his kid telling you that you're pronouncing the
kid's name wrong. This word is only 25 years old, not centuries.

~~~
kmm
The age hardly matters, language works fast. And this is not some relative
mispronouncing it, this is millions of people using a pronunciation that makes
more sense etymologically.

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sp332
Some discussion from a larger story earlier today:
<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5748439>

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apineda
jrafics interchange format

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Steko
I hope he pronounces everything like the Saxons would have since, apparently,
the rabble isn't allowed to change language.

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riffraff
well, I always pronounced like that, yay :)

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vanni
Me too! Well... it's because we are Italians, so the "JIF" pronunciation
sounds much more natural to us.

~~~
Guillaume86
Me too (as a french speaker)

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beothorn
Offtopic but kinda related. Father of the "Dothraki", the language used on
game of thrones says you're all pronouncing Khaleesi WRONG
[http://io9.com/youre-all-pronouncing-khaleesi-
wrong-47877979...](http://io9.com/youre-all-pronouncing-khaleesi-
wrong-478779791)

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dsl
More of an absentee father if you ask me, which means he shouldn't be involved
in how the baby is named.

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groundCode
hmm defacto vs dejure if you ask me

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jack-r-abbit
Anyone who corrects me on how I pronounce GIF is just as much a pompous jack
ass as the person that would correct me on how I pronounce tomato, potato,
schedule, apricot or pecan.

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moron4hire
I neither get the insistence it is pronounced one way or the other, nor the
insistence that one will not change how they pronounce it, for any word.

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scotthtaylor
This "jif" illustrates my feelings towards that pronounciation:
<http://gph.is/XJQ7rp>

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medecau
Let's agree to disagree and move the fuck on.

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meepmorp
No, it's pronounced /d͡ʒɪf/.

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gte910h
That's not how language works. Things are pronounced how they are.

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forgetcolor
uh, no, it's really not.

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waterlesscloud
Of course it is. This was never really debatable.

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kunai
I always pronounce it "Jee Eye Ef."

Maybe I'm just weird that way.

~~~
jlgreco
Similarly, I refuse to pronounce "PNG" as anything other than "Pee En Gee".

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thpoul
Justice served! Finally!

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rogerclark
who gives a shit

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pasquinelli
it's true, it is pronounced jif. it's also pronounced gif.

