Yeah I pulled it out originally because I was tired of people saying that "gi" is almost always hard g, and I don't think the lack of f makes a difference (because English spelling rules are silly, like you say. In the other thread I mentioned that just because the word "women" exists we don't pronounce every "wom" sequence with a short i sound).

The closest word to gif is gift for me. I think that's the conclusion most come to and why the hard G is the most common.

A pronunciation that is common and widespread becomes the correct way to say something. Languages are constantly evolving and in movement. They don't care for what a few or even the words creator want.

I always felt like this was a weird argument. Language is always in flux. It's why the definition of "literally" now includes a definition that it's a synonym of "figuratively" since people used it that was so much.

If enough people think gif should be pronounced like "god", then it should. If the "jif" pronunciation has enough people who use it, then that's valid, too. Hell, if a bunch of people started legitimately saying it should be a homonym with the word "plankton," even that'd be valid.

Words are about conveying meaning; the same meaning is intended with both pronunciations, and understood by the people hearing it. There's nothing to argue about.

Both pronunciations already had solid handholds in the zeitgeist by 2016, it was named 30 years before that. I'd argue the 50/50 split you provide nothing but hearsay for is proof that the hard g pronunciation is more intuitive as it was originally marketed and advertised with the soft g (and a pronunciation guide for the slogan as folks have helpfully pointed out). By your and Tom Scott's reasoning, everyone exposed to it then would use the soft g, but people in the decades after who knew nothing of the cheap marketing stunt would inevitably pronounce it however made the most sense to them. Thus the hard g pronunciation.

Now for my own personal hearsay, it's never been anywhere close to 50/50 and it's gotten more and more unbalanced towards the hard g over time. In 2011 it was maybe 70/30 hard g/soft g, now it feels like 95/5 ‍️. But again, that's all obviously irrelevant due to it's subjectivity.

.gif came first and no one uses .jif anymore because there are better options.

If you read my name, and I pointed out that your pronunciation was wrong, would you tell me my pronunciation is incorrect due to pronunciation rules rather than how my parents named me?

Edit: and I'll just note, a soft g is very well defined, and is usually behind an e, i, or y, while a hard g is typically behind an a, o, or u, but let's focus on the whole "who gets to choose how a name is pronounced" bit for a moment.

I mean, they got to name it... How it sounds is part of that

How it sounds is a lot more related to basic prononciation rules then the arbitrary whims of the inventor.

In this case, he chose to name it GIF which is, believe it or not, pronounced gif in the English language. If he wanted to have it sound like jif, he should have named it JIF.

Not to say that we don't sometimes disregard the rules for certain words. Ultimately a words meaning and prononciation is collectively decided through usage. I think collectively, we have chosen to ignore the creators lack of basic linguistic skills and prononce the word how it's written.

and the company “Nike” is yelling “no it’s Nike! Like the god!”

So in this example, are they yelling it like their namesake is actually pronounced ( [niː́kɛː] , the i like in "flee", the e like in "bad"), or in the english pronounciation (i like in "die", e like in "flee")?

The P in JPEG stands for photographic so I guess we shall pronounce it "jayfeg" based on that logic.

/s

Descriptive linguistic opinion: both the hard and soft G pronunciations are used, with the hard G being more common, but I like the soft G and use it myself.

There exist countries where Nike rhymes with the name Mike in their language. I'm unwilling to tell people they're not allowed to pronounce it the way their majority does.

The U in scuba stands for underwater yet people pronounce it scOOba

The E in hepa stands for efficiency yet its pronounced HEPA with a short E

The A in nato stands for Atlantic and the O stands for organization

The first A in ASAP is for as

The Os in POTUS, SCOTUS and FLOTUS all come from of and the Us comes from United

Acronyms don’t need to sound like the word they are from

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.

There's already a file format by the name .jif!

How do you pronounce CD?

Linearity uses LASER ARGUMENT!

LASER is actually an acronym that stands for “Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation” however it is widely pronounced as “lazer”.

Lmao, idk why anyone would claim that either. Re: the other part, I also don’t think there’s any inherent reason the “f”, but in my sleepy haze writing this last night I wasn’t able to think of an example with the soft “g” followed by “if”. I feel like it must exist but I’m too tired to find it.

Linearity uses LASER ARGUMENT!

LASER is actually an acronym that stands for “Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation” however it is widely pronounced as “lazer”.

We’ve solidly been talking about English this whole time, since the entire basis for the pronunciation is that it’s a play on an English advertisement “choosy developers choose gif”. I’m not going to argue with other languages. Just like with the dude that is pulling out Ancient Greek, if anyone still speaks that they yeah they can pronounce Nike differently, otherwise it’s a translation to English.

Yeah I pulled it out originally because I was tired of people saying that "gi" is almost always hard g, and I don't think the lack of f makes a difference (because English spelling rules are silly, like you say. In the other thread I mentioned that just because the word "women" exists we don't pronounce every "wom" sequence with a short i sound).