When you hear someone pronounce GIF as 'JIF

Geography
Geology
Giraffe
Generous

Just a few examples that come to mind. Additionally, the pronunciation of the individual words included in an acronym DOES NOT determine the pronunciation of that acronym. See SCUBA as an example.

Good and very informative, thank you.

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I'm still gonna pronounce it (G)IF though.
- This, and Gig Git Girl Gibbon Gift Gill Giddy Gigahertz Gimmick Gizzard
- As long as you don't shame others with reasons that don't make sense, you can pronounce it gif for all I care
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9iafa959JvY - Literally this but with any example either way depending on what side you're on.
  
  It's GIF. Just because you create something doesn't mean you aren't fucking dumb. Eventually, it's no longer yours anyway lol.
Counterpoint: Gift

Literally has gif in it and is pronounced with a hard 'g'.
- We don’t pronounced words by what other words they contain. “Americano” is not “American+o.” “Fare” is not “far+e.”
  
  ~~For some reason, the hard G advocates for “gif” seem to make up fake language rules to justify pronouncing it wrong.~~
- Counter counter point. The inventor of the gif said it’s pronounced like the peanut butter. It’s already been settled.
JPEG is the best direct example. Who pronounces the F sound?
My giant german friend George Gerard gestates and raises giraffes in genuine need of gentle geriatric care. Such a gentleman.

It's jif.
- Good guess, gonna be glib. But you have got to give it a gamble and try to greet the truth that the G uttered like in the words gift, gone, goop, and game is indeed greater.
- Permanently Deleted
For your SCUBA example, is it the U you're talking about?

Underwater vs oonderwater?

Scuhba vs Scooba?
- Also, the A stands for Apparatus, so it should be scuhbah since it's Apparatus, not uhpparatus
- Scuhba has me laughing.
- Yep the U. Scubba dubba doo!
do you have a problem with my ˌɡiˈʁafə
OBJECTION!!

First and foremost, pronounced Gif there

Graphics Interchange Format. Not Jraphics. Unless you spell it out as Jee-Ai-Eff

Also, git isn't spelled "jit", it's not "jit gud", nor "jit hub". Other examples that would be wrong: jirl, jirth, jiddy, jirder, jingko

Most of the 'ji' sounding words are rooted from other languages, mostly French (some of them brought over from Latin). Finally, languages where 'ge' and 'gi' sound like 'je' and 'ji' say 'Gif'
- By that logic, "scuba" should be pronounced scuh-ba, and "laser" should be pronounced lah-seer.
  
  Also "jee" is also how you say the letter "G".
  
  Gin, Germany, giraffe, gypsy, gib, giblet. Raising examples of words that start with hard and soft Gs is absolutely pointless when both exist and are equally valid.
  
  Why are people arguing about how an acronym is pronounced in the English language anyways? Who gives a shit? When you point out a "rule" in English, there will always be exceptions, many exceptions, to that rule. Even English doesn't even agree with English: "entree" means appetizer in Europe but main course in the US.
  
  So why do you care so much?
- You clearly didn't even read the whole comment. Acronyms do not need to be pronounced according to their constituent words.
- Brother, if you want to appeal to origin the creator of the gif file format says it's jif. The motto of the file format is "Choosy developers choose gif"

Obviously it's pronounced the same as the the "g" in "gigantic"

The second g in garage.
- Been pronouncing it that way since Idea Channel :)
  
  ʒaɪf ftw
I never realized how contradictory this word is. Thank you
I pronounce it like the "g" in "design"
- I, too, subscribe to the Danish pronounciation of G
- as if
The life of the wife was ended by the knife in that GIF!
Oh I'm definitely pronouncing it zhif from now on!
I just love Jraphical Image Format.
I'm pretty sure I've heard people pronounce gigantic both ways though lol.

Guy-gantick makes me thing of an Englishman.

Jai-gantick makes me think American.
- Nobody has ever once said guygantic. Not ever.
- (There are 2 Gs in the word "gigantic")

I would never correct how someone pronounces gif, but...

Gin is a tasty drink.
Gerunds are verbal nouns.
Gentrification is a trend in urban environments.
Gifs are poorly optimized internet clips with controversy surrounding their pronunciation.

Giraffes are tall.
- Long horses? That begins with an L
Give - the v is just f but voiced from a phonetical standpoint

It is gif

Amen 🙏

I used to be adament about gif with a hard G until I had a coworker insist that sudo was pronounced soodoo rather than pseudo. like yeah, I know it stands for sUpEr uSeR dO but you can never get me to not say it the other way.

I've been using Linux for like 18 years and I will never say soodoo. I will die on this hill.
In my head I thought of it like a psuedo su and thought sudo was clever, then learning it is like soodoo and I'm highly disappointed. I still say it like psuedo in my head. I use arch btw.
it's not like gif stands for jraphics interchange format.

neither does it stand for giraffe interchange format.

nor does it stand for geranium interchnage format.

but if you're sharing gifs of giraffes or giraniums, i suppose that's allowable.
- The p in jpeg stands for photographic, but you don't pronounce it a "jay-feg".
- By that logic, "jpeg" is pronounced jay-feg, "scuba" scuh-ba, and "laser" lah-seer.
  
  Such a dumb argument that never holds up.

Gerry the gentle giraffe went to the gym with the generous gem of a gymnast Geoffrey (the giant ginger who wears gentlemen’s hair gel and studies geometry). Genius!

That's the gist, generally. Then, gyrating, giblets jiggling , he mixed a gigantic gin and ginseng.
- ^ this person gets it.
  
  People are so weird about this. Yes, G’s often sound like J’s English is weird. The inventor gets to have the say, he called it “jif”, great, it’s “jif”. To say it hard g “gif” and act like all G’s sound the same is just announcing one’s own ignorance. Weird take. Welcome to English!
  
  English is filled with weird duplicative shit. Ex: Why do we even have C’s anyway if we could use an S or a K? “Accident” one C is “kuh” and one C is “Suh”. WTF English?

The creator of the format, Steve Wihite, says it’s pronounced as JIF, but personally I still say GIF out of habit.

https://www.cnn.com/2013/05/22/tech/web/pronounce-gif/index.html

I’ve had similar arguments with people over the pronunciation of Linux, with one person saying it’s “Lie-nicks” because it’s named after “Linus”, but Linus himself has said he pronounces his own name differently depending on the language he’s speaking at the time, but Linux is always pronounced “Lynn-icks.”

https://youtu.be/5IfHm6R5le0?si=9bQHnIiB0UxBYS2o

It's like hearing people who work at Asus call it Asus instead of Asus.

The only reason they're saying it's Asus is because they have to. They say Asus like everyone else at home.

Also, after a certain amount of time, the word you made up is no longer yours. That be how language works yo.
- At this point GIFs in their original form as .GIF files barely exist anymore. GIF basically just means "short clip". Why would the author get any say at all at that point?
Why isn't this higher up? Thanks for the real info, I was going to post this if no one else did.
I hate the way it's pronounced. It should be like Line-ix, but the creator of it decides so as ugly as it is to say it's lih-nucks.

It's pronounced however the fuck you want to pronounce it.

I like to pronounce it "jif" because gin, gentle, Germany, gypsy. Others like to pronounce it "gif" because gift, good, game, girl.

Don't pull any bullshit reasons like "it's not pronounced jraphics", because if that argument holds any water, JPEG is jay-feg, scuba is scuh-ba, and laser is lah-seer.

The creator calls it "jif" and wants others to call it "jif". I don't give a shit; if some people want to call it "gif", that's up to them and I'm not stopping them. English is not a prescriptive language; pronunciations will always differ according to origins and regions and accents and generations. I will not misunderstand you if you pronounce it "gif", and you will not misunderstand me if I say "jif".

jay-feg

Babe wake up, new pointless acronym controversy just dropped
This should be the top comment, thank you for putting into words exactly how I feel fellow jiffer
By calling it "jif" I think the creator was referencing "jiffy," as in "fast." It's like a video, but it loads in a jiffy. Or: it's a short looping video - it's over in a jiffy then restarts again.

I think people that call it "gif" don't intuitively get this, even at the subconscious level. If they did, I think they'd prefer "jif." It's much more fun IMO. Not to mention that it's less likely to be mistaken for an existing word (gift). So it's both more fun and more practical. What else do we have to do to convince you people :(
- It's a reference to Jif peanut butter's ad campaign.
  
  "Choosy moms choose Jif" was used as "Choosy developers choose GIF".

Well, you see, the g in gif stands for "graphics" which is ultimately from Greek "γραφικός," and because this is the 21st century, γ in front of a close front vowel is pronounced as neither /g/ nor /d͡ʒ/ but rather /ʝ/, which is pronounced a bit like English's y, so in its purest rendition gif is really pronounced "yiff", which doubles as homage to the online communities that OP frequents.

If you're supposed to pronounce it based on the original word instead of how the person who invented it says it, then I'd like to see giff crusaders take on everyone's terrible pronunciation of words like SCUBA (the U stands for underwater, so should be UH not EW) and NASA (the first A stands for aeronautics so should be pronounced Nair-sa).
- Don't worry, I was being 100% facetious! After all, γ is generally believed to have been a hard /g/ in Ancient Greek, which is the version of Greek that "graphic" is based on and is CLEARLY the wrong way to say gif :D
  
  Kinda sorta un-jerking (but not really) for a moment, I don't think that I'd include the rhotic in your hypothetical pronunciation in NASA and thus would say /neæ.sə/ over /neɚ.sə/. I also don't palatalize the U in SCUBA (/sku:.bə/, not /sk^(j)u:bə/), but I suspect that's just a dialectical difference.
  
  Edit: I just saw your NZ lemmy instance name and now I understand the vowel choices. Cheers!

Some arguments that people keep bringing up that are all wrong and carry zero weight in this discussion:

The creator says it's JIF
It's like Gift, but without the T
It's like Giraffe, but without the raffe
It stands for "Graphics Interchange Format" so it's GIF
My dictionary says it's GIF
My dictionary says it's JIF
Obama says it's GIF
Giphy says it's GIF

Ultimately, language is very dynamic and changes all the time. Words change their spelling, their meaning and their pronunciation too. Dictionaries tend to lag behind a little bit, but the fact that they publish a new version every year signifies how much languages change. The creator of a word can coin a pronunciation, but ultimately has zero control over whether it will be adopted or not.

So therefore whichever way most people actually pronounce it is by definition the correct pronunciation. And the polls done on this subject are pretty clear, showing that GIF is the preferred pronunciation, chosen by up to 70% in North America and over 80% in Australia and the UK. This depends on which poll you use, but in general the split is at least 2:1 in favour of GIF, and over time the usage of GIF tends to trend up over time.

So ultimately, the one true pronunciation is GIF, as decided by the people as a whole. However, most dictionaries do list JIF as an accepted alternative pronunciation, due to the not insignificant minority pronouncing it that way.

In other words, just choose which pronunciation you prefer, and use that. And try to avoid the pointless debates people like to have on the subject, filled with arguments that don't carry any weight whatsoever.

It's funny reading this with the soft-g pronunciation and imagining you arguing with yourself saying, "it's gif! No, gif! No, gif!"
I wouldn't say the arguments are all wrong and carry zero weight. How are you so sure that these arguments haven't swayed the majority towards one side or the other? These arguments are happening between actual people (I've heard normal people discuss this outside of online communities), possibly shaping their opinions, and could be what's shaping those 70/80% numbers.
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Who fucking cares

I was tired of this shit 15 years ago and it's still """""pissing""""" off people
Nonono, you don't understand, flame wars build character! 'Twere the early aughts that made me the healthy and well adjusted person I am today!

Or at least, that's what I'd say if what actually happened wasn't that I became a jaded bastard and if I didn't think it was just some ploy to drive engagement to let OP feel popular for a moment... in the best case scenario
- Gaded bastard
If you don't want to participate in a thread, move the right thumb in an upward flicking motion.

How do you pronounce gin? How do you pronounce giraffe?

How do you pronounce gift?
- Or girl or gill?
Even though I pronounce it "jif" too, I am tired of seeing arguments that rely on how other words are pronounced. You are not helping the cause, as these arguments are too easily countered. There are much more convincing arguments to be made, such as how "jif" is more practical since it can't be confused with "gift," and how the creator was making a reference to the word "jiffy."
That may be a perfectly reasonable argument, but also, YOU'RE WROOONG, GIF WILL NEVER BE JIF
- Jraphics Interchange Format

This is actually an issue that should be solved at the English level. All words starting with a 'g' that are pronounced 'j' should be written with a 'j'.

Girl -> Girl
Giraffe -> jiraffe
GIF -> GIF

Gordons Jin?
I like your way of thinking. Now, what about damned "Pacific Ocean"?
- Pasifik Owshyn
See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English-language_spelling_reform

English has been the total outlier among (originally) European language with no body of authority over its spelling. Even the “reform” by Noah Webster never really caught on outside North America, nearly 100 years later. And even more curious, the somewhat authoritative Oxford English Dictionary disagrees in their spelling with everybody (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxford_spelling).

The creator of the format says "JIF", so I say it as well.

He came out with that after almost 30 years of watching people fight over it. Yeah no, I've been saying [G]IF since 1996 and it's not changing now. He can shove his JIF where the sun doesn't shine.
- It’s well documented going all the way back to 1987 when the format was first coined that it was always a soft g. Compuserve had it in their official memos. An early gif had the pronunciation embedded as a comment in its code. Witnesses attested that the creator would go around the office saying, “Choosy developers use gif,” a play on “Choosy moms choose Jiff.”
- No he didn’t. They literally sold it as “choosy developers choose gif”. It was part of the marketing to software devs. He didn’t feel the need to say anything on fucking stage until normies started using it and couldn’t understand context.
- "I've invented a thing! I call it a cup!"
  
  You: "wow I love chup, everyone come look at this cool chup"
  
  Doubling down on being wrong just makes you double wrong.
- When he invented it he named it after the penutbutter.
  
  The slogan was "choosy developers choose gif" to parody "choosy moms choose jiff".
But clearly he's an idiot.
Is there anything, at all, that I can do, to convince you, that you sound, like an idiot?
- Here is an alternative Piped link(s): https://piped.video/watch?v=9iafa959JvY
  
  Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
  
  I'm open-source, check me out at GitHub.
I use the same metric and use the English pronunciation of words as an American.l, because they're correct and we are wrong.

I'm considered a hipster douche for it.

Others are correct to say so.

Al-uuuuu-min-eee-umm

Yaw-gert

Tuh-mot-o
- Aluminum was an either or from the start and it just happened which side of the ocean got which and that they weren’t the same
Is he a linguist tho?

gust jet over it.

Juys gust jet over it

Gesus Christ

Blame english instead of people probouncing the wrong way. English don't give a fucking clue about pronounciation only using letters.

So I can pronounce Blamei as Lemmy. [B silent, a - e sound, mm and m can be pronounced same, and ei can be read as y]

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- Well probouncing is pronounced as pronouncing

We speak the language and pronounce new words based on the past words of the language. There are exceptions but they don't negate the defaults.

Nearly every single word in English that starts with a g followed by a soft ih/eh vowel is pronounced as a soft g, just a few:

gin gypsy general gerund Gerald gel gem gyp Geronimo gesture

In fact, there are something like 20,000 words in the dictionary that start with G and the number of them that are pronounced with a hard G where this rule otherwise dictates a soft G is such a small fraction of them that it has its own wiki page.

This video is a tad harsh for comedic effort, but otherwise entirely fact based and sourced:

https://youtu.be/MSJaSS_Zj0Y

Bottom line: you're free to use a hard G, but it's not the default pronunciation based on either all other English words or the creator's intentions, and if you're confused why others pronounce it with a soft G, they would seem to be simply more familiar with the English language 🤷‍♂️

I say G,i,f as in I pronounce it like an acronym
- That's... more wrong for some reason.
- I pronounce "gif" with a soft g to annoy people, and even I hate this.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s): https://piped.video/MSJaSS_Zj0Y

Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.

I'm open-source, check me out at GitHub.
Nearly every single word in English that starts with a g followed by a soft ih/eh vowel is pronounced as a soft g, just a few:

That is patently not true and blatant cherry picking, e.g. already contradicted by the lexically matching word “gift” (and there are “giggle”, “gild”, “girl”, “git”, “give”, “gizmo”, etc.). See Wikipedia, which referenced linguists studying this:

An analysis of 269 words by linguist Michael Dow found near-tied results on whether a hard or soft g was more appropriate based on other English words; the results varied somewhat depending on what parameters were used.[11] Of the 105 words that contained gi somewhere in the word, 68 used the soft g while only 37 employed its counterpart. However, the hard g words were found to be significantly more common in everyday English; […]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pronunciation_of_GIF#Cause

Michael Dow is an associate professor in linguistics with specialization in phonology, by the way.

and if you’re confused why others pronounce it with a soft G, they would seem to be simply more familiar with the English language 🤷‍♂️

Well, clearly you are already not as “familiar with the English language” as you might think.
- All you basically said is "nuh uh because my feelings" and then an appeal to authority who disregarded the following vowel sound. "But he's a professor" proves nothing, let alone backs any sort of assertion that you or he are familiar with squat 🤷‍♂️

I’ve heard it both ways

Just see https://time.com/5791028/how-to-pronounce-gif/ and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pronunciation_of_GIF#Analysis_of_the_dispute

I switch up my pronunciation on a whim to cause maximum chaos.

Everyone in the comments pointing out inconsistencies in the English language, but there's lots of people who speak other languages, that do very interesting things to such consonants.

Can we get some input from the likes of the Danish and the Dutch regarding how to read this?

Yeah, that's what I said. Gif.

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Gorgeia? Tell your mom she still owes me for the Uber.

Good, the blood of Eden shall rise

This is also what the German Nutrition Society (DGE) is saying btw

We stray further from Jod

Blood of Eden likes this.

Zod must be pissed.

KNEEL BEFORE ZOD

Is this one of those me me's I've heard of?

I pronounce "salmon", "solder", "colonel", "victual", "gunwale", "vineyard", and "indict" all phonetically. I still insist that they're alternative pronoucniations and not "wrong ways to pronounce them". If that's the case, then say "GIF" however the hell you want.

You should never say 'worcestershire sauce ' in public, you'll cause a riot.
- This I can do without causing a riot.
  
  But seriously though, the Brits have weird place names.
TIL victual is a word.
- Wait until you learn that it's pronounced "vittle". I hate English now.

Looks like the Jif crowds downvote bombing, yikes.

So I’m upvoting everyone, let’s try and keep this civil and downvotes out of this! Both sides are technically correct, correcting each other is divisive and playing into trolling.

I just want the “hard-g because graphical” crowd to really commit to the bit and start insisting that JPEG be pronounced “jay-feg” because of “photographic.”
Honestly who cares at the end of the day, even if one is technically correct enough people pronounce it the "wrong" way that it's like trying to unpop a baloon
lol no they aren't both correct. The creator of the format decides and did decide, it's pronounced like a J just like the peanut butter they did a collaboration with because it's pronounced just like that. There's no debate, just trolling.
- just because someone demonstrated intelligence and efficacy in a specific field does not make them an appropriate authority on other shit.
  
  herman cain, for instance, was a very talented neurosurgeon but still such a fucking moron he literally got his own stupid ass killed through covid denialism.
  
  this is also why we should still call it twitter no mattter what a dipshit like elon musk wants
  
  people who have, on paper, a "right" to assign the name or title to something can be wrong, and this is one such case.

Since the whole Michael Bublé Bubly advertisements, I like to say Googlé just to watch people roll their eyes.

How quirky.

Is this one of those reposter bot people?

No. The OP has posted in other topics.
- Ah K

Everyone knows it's pronounced "yiff".

Makes me think of that tweet where they bring up old English pronunciation and say it could be 'yif

Having issues with mobile, so cant upload the image

I just want to pronounce it the opposite way: https://youtu.be/Cyq6fTYxztc

Are there people that pronounce it other ways?

my husband says hard -g, I say jif. it's a point of contention.
- I'm in the soft-g camp, my wife doesn't agree. We try to accept each other's differences... but she's wrong, what can I say
- Well that’s a gaffe

If you say so, Cathy. That's your new name by the way, your parents were clearly wrong because reasons, and Cathy is easier to write so that's you now.

It should be a war crime.

Graphics Interchange Format. Graphics. Not Jraphics.

That’s not how acronyms as words works. AIDS isn’t pronounced “Uh-ids” like the A in acquired.
Letters are pronounced differently in acronyms than in the original words all the time. Take POTUS, for example; the O and U are not the sounds in "of" or "United".
- You mean you guys haven't been saying "puh-thyoos" all this time?

So its "Jraphics Interchange Format"?

No, Carl. Acronyms are not pronounced based on the origin words of the letters that make them up. That is a fake rule made up by people just so they could justify pronouncing “gif” wrong.

See also:

scuba

radar

sonar

NASA

NATO
Yea just like j-feg images.

The creator says it's jif. That's it. That's the end of the discussion. You don't get to decide which is correct. The end.

You can say gif if you want, you'll be wrong, but you can say it.

I'll take hard G gif to my grave (jrave?).

I don't care how wrong it is

The bastards will never grind (jrind?) me down
I’d rather be in the majority saying it wrong then the minority saying it right.

Because at the end of the day the way you pronounce words is a very social thing, and no matter what is technically right or wrong, it’s going to benefit you to say it in the way everyone else does.

And the majority say it with the hard G.
- Is it really the majority, though? This wouldn't be so divisive an issue if everyone said it the same way
- Lmao "I'd rather be wrong like everyone else" is the most spineless, smoothbrained, brainwashy bullshit I've ever heard. Get the fuck out of here.