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 :-)
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"
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
There are many who have always pronounced it 'jif'. I thought it was strange when I first learned that there are people who say 'gif' with a 'G' sound.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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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[ 4.3 ms ] story [ 123 ms ] threadSame with Quake players saying 'gibbed' instead of 'jibbed'. The 'G' sounds makes me throw up a little.
And so the .gif slogan is "Choosy developers choose Gif."
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" :)
"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.)
This, of course, is from someone in the unapologetic hard-g camp. :)
Giff4life.
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?
This is not really about an image format. Linguistic prescriptivism is the real issue.
[Of course in reality, the format will probably become irrelevant, and the word forgotten, before there's any consensus on the pronunication... ^^; ]
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.
Or Giraffeics, that would work too.
Society agrees it's pronounced "gif", it's pronounced "gif".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Descriptive_linguistics
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.
I doubt I will ever say this (or even want to say this) correctly.