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The "G" stands for "Graphics". Why would anybody pronounce it "jif"?
Ask the person who created the format, who pronounced it that way themselves
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Steve Wilhite (engineering lead on the team that created GIF) said the soft g is the right pronunciation.
The only argument is that the guy who invented and named the GIF originally pronounced it that way, but he was a computer scientist, not a linguist. Thankfully the inevitable and uncontrollable evolution of language corrected that mistake fairly quickly.
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The only argument is that the guy who invented and named the GIF originally pronounced it that way, but he was a computer scientist, not a linguist. Thankfully the inevitable and uncontrollable evolution of language corrected that mistake fairly quickly.
Because at the origin of the format, "choosy graphic designers choose .GIF". Which is a direct reference to JIF, the brand of peanut butter, and their tagline.
The pronunciation of an acronym often has little to nothing to do with the words themselves they represent, and more to do with the acronym itself as though it were a word.
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There’s no linguistic requirement for any of the letters to match any part of the pronunciation.
I made no statements to the contrary, not sure why you directed any of that first paragraph at me and not the person I responded to. Regardless, the only "correct" pronunciations of any words are the ones that find purchase in the cultural lexicon. The fact that the soft g pronunciation was chosen by a corporation trying to cash in on the success of a different corporation is even less convincing of an argument. Fuck those soulless money-grubbers, they can take their advertising slogan-based neoligisms and shove them in their arse, but pronounced like "ass" because language evolves. You have to evolve with it or you won't understand it.
You're absolutely correct, regardless of who defined the sound, it's how it's generally pronounced in public that becomes the status quo and therefore "correct" way.
I've never heard anyone in real life use the soft G. Doesn't mean people don't, but regionally it's "JIF" for me.
The funny thing is, regardless of how it's said people who know anything about computers understand what you're talking about, so the argument is really a useless one. Maybe if .jif was used more then it would matter, but I can't say I've seen a .jif file in the wild myself.
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Ask the person who created the format, who pronounced it that way themselves
Ask the company who developed it and used a selling slogan that parodied JIF peanut butter.
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Because at the origin of the format, "choosy graphic designers choose .GIF". Which is a direct reference to JIF, the brand of peanut butter, and their tagline.
The pronunciation of an acronym often has little to nothing to do with the words themselves they represent, and more to do with the acronym itself as though it were a word.
but there's already .jif!!!!
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Because the words inside an acronym have no bearing on how the acronym is pronounced. And in this case, it’s not just as acronym. It’s a product name, where the creators get to choose to name it whatever the fuck they want. “Choosy developers choose gif”. So there’s plenty of reasons it should be using a soft g and zero reasons it should be using a hard g.
You just gave a reason for a hard G.
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but there's already .jif!!!!
Reverse that.
.jif (jpeg interchange format) came out 5 years after .gif.
It was an homage to GIF.
Edited to add: Also no one ever really used it.
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Steve Wilhite (engineering lead on the team that created GIF) said the soft g is the right pronunciation.
You know I daresay that basically your exact comment is what OOP was responding too on reddit.
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You know I daresay that basically your exact comment is what OOP was responding too on reddit.
Wouldn't doubt it.
Some folks get unreasonably mad about what they consider "right".
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I loved Idea Channel.
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Nope that is far from the only argument.
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It is how the word was originally said and intended to be used. Evidence: the literal first advertisement for the format: "choosy developers choose GIF", a pun on the advertisement for JIF peanut butter.
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the pronunciation of g before a vowel is not always hard. Giraffe. Gin.
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the pronunciation of the individual words in an acronym don't define its pronunciation. NASA - Aeronautic, Association - do you pronounce it NÆSÂ? ASAP - do you say ÂSÂP or AySAP?
It's fine to say it however you want, but to act like one way is definitively correct, for the reasons you cite anyway, is bad
I didn't cite any reasons and I didn't say that there is a correct and incorrect way to pronounce it now, just that the way they chose to pronounce it originally was arbitrary and unintuitive. Add a "t" to the end, what does that spell? The pronunciations of giraffe and gin are equally unintuitive to modern American English speakers, they're just old words that have been well-established in the lexicon so no one thinks about that. If someone came up with the word gin today, we'd probably be having the same argument about it.
And when I said it's the only argument, I meant it's the only one that holds any water. It's still leaking all over the place.
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Wouldn't doubt it.
Some folks get unreasonably mad about what they consider "right".
That's,,,, exactly what it sounded like you were doing...
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This will be included in Alecto The Ninth, mark my words.
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Jod made the Jiraffes and the Giraffes and they were best friends. But then one Jiraffe found God and he spited Jod and all the Giraffes with all his might.
Did Jeorge of the gungle come by too?
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NASA, not NAySA, SCUBA, not SCUBbA, LASER, not LASsER. Many such cases.
ATM is not an acronym, though, just an initialism, so the letters are pronounced individually.
All initialisms are acronyms
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Given that there’s also a .jif format, the J pronunciation makes even less sense.
.gif came first and no one uses .jif anymore because there are better options.
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Jod made the Jiraffes and the Giraffes and they were best friends. But then one Jiraffe found God and he spited Jod and all the Giraffes with all his might.
I'll just post my comment from when I ran across this on lemmy before
I’ll tell the agile fragile fugitive gin-drinking giraffes eating ginger ginseng to imagine gingerly using their digits to engineer a geological survey of the gist of your comment. They ate too much gingerbread and now have gingivitis, so the margins of those attracted to religion aren’t as rigid as the original origins of those of that region and we have to remain vigilant lest magic supersede logic, which of course would be terrible for legislation of the legions.
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That's,,,, exactly what it sounded like you were doing...
I'm pointing to the lead of the team that created it. They get to name it, not me.
I'm also not oddly mad about it like the person replying to me with lots of exclamation points, the user in OPs image, or the person using their alt that has only been used to downvote people they are in conversations with for the past few months.
All I said was the people responsible for it say its a soft g, not a hard g.
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It's an acronym, people! Say it right:
"Gee" "Eye" "Eff"
...or impress us all with your knowledge: Graphics Interchange Format.
Make CompuServe proud.
If it's an acronym it wouldn't be pronounced like that, that would be an initialism.
