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posted by martyb on Thursday February 27 2020, @10:11AM   Printer-friendly
from the it's-not-geef-either dept.

Peanut butter brand Jif has put forth their opinion on how to pronounce GIF.

From their website(warning, lots of animated GIFs):

When is it OK to call a Gif a "Jif"? Never.

Jif® is peanut butter. GIFs are
looping animations.
SNACK ON THAT.

That would be all well and good except for just one thing. The person who actually created the format, Steve Wilhite, explicitly stated GIF was to be pronounced with a soft "G"!

From a 1997 edition of the NetBITS newsletter, down near the bottom of the page appears:

It's "Jiff" and I Don't Want to Hear Another Word -- Logic may dictate the "g" in GIF (Graphic Interchange Format) is pronounced hard, like gift or gefilte fish, but that didn't stop dozens and dozens of readers from offering opinions, many of them hilarious.

However, several people wrote to say that they either worked with folks at CompuServe or read the original GIF specification, all of which specified a soft "g". None of us at NetBITS understand why we haven't seen the definitive word before, so here it is. Charlie Reading <charlier@kreber.com> writes:

I worked with the creator of GIF (Steve Wilhite) when I was still employed by CompuServe. Steve always pronounced it "jiff" and would correct those who pronounced it with a hard G. "Choosy developers choose GIF" (spinning off of a historically popular peanut butter commercial).

An article at Ars Technica actually queries professional linguists in pursuit of the ultimate answer.

See this Sesame Street-like GIF which mentions popular words that start with a soft G such as Giant and Giraffe.

Lastly, here is a short video (1m18s) with what is quite possibly the strongest affirmation of all. David Karp presents Steve Wilhite with the 2013 Lifetime Achievement Award at the 17th Annual Webbys where Steve dramatically uses a GIF as his acceptance 'speech' and sets the matter straight once and for all.

Not that it settles anything. The debate will rage on like vi vs. Emacs.


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  • (Score: 2) by DannyB on Thursday February 27 2020, @04:47PM

    by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Thursday February 27 2020, @04:47PM (#963594) Journal

    Now you've done it. Trying to re-fight the holy war . . .

    I guess I better shut up about tabs vs spaces.

    --
    People today are educated enough to repeat what they are taught but not to question what they are taught.
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