How do you pronounce "Gif"?

[gay_Aleks]

no you see 28 people voted on an internet poll so it's objectively correct

 

[Lexicus]

Yes, due to the Karl Rove postulate. I will vote in an internet poll, and you - all of you - will be left to study what I did.

 

[Commodore]

no you see 28 people voted on an internet poll so it's objectively correct

That and, you know, the overwhelming majority of humans who encounter the word pronouncing it that way too. Or are we going to start operating on that super-edgy thinking that if a lot of people do it that way, it must be wrong or stupid?

 

[Ryika]

Thankfully we don't even have to go by our own poll, there's bigger internet polls already that show the same trend:

http://mashable.com/2014/10/21/mispronounced-words-tech/#75YtXgrrvuqA
http://articles.latimes.com/2012/jun/15/business/la-fi-tn-gif-jiff-25th-birthday-20120615
(etc. etc. etc. - literally hundreds show up on a quick google search, those that I clicked through all had the same results)

Interestingly enough, an eBay-Poll cited by WuzzFeed seems to have the closest result that I can find:
https://www.buzzfeed.com/jtes/only-...the-gif-pronun?utm_term=.tka68ZGwM#.nrpPOzDvA

With 54% pronouncing it "gif" and 40% pronouncing it "jiff" (the rest answering 'Other', which I assume is 'Yiff'... or maybe there's actually people saying 'Gee I Eff'?). The actual poll doesn't seem to be available anymore.

In either case, majority vote seems to dictate that 'gif' is the preferred pronounciation.

 

[Mise]

That and, you know, the overwhelming majority of humans who encounter the word pronouncing it that way too. Or are we going to start operating on that super-edgy thinking that if a lot of people do it that way, it must be wrong or stupid?

Mate, your entire argument revolves around the fact (and it is a fact) that English is a non-prescriptivist language, and that pronunciation is a merely matter of social convention. Therefore, there is no "right" or "wrong" way of pronouncing things, just "conventional" or "unconventional".

And even then, what's "conventional" is not fixed or immutable: the way we pronounce things in the UK differs drastically from city to city, region to region. You can go 50 miles and encounter 5 different ways of pronouncing basic words.

This is why the opinion (and it is an opinion) of the creator of the format is something I don't give a crap about. He doesn't decide what is "correct" or "incorrect", because there's no such thing.

 

[cardgame]

On the one hand, we have Mise's post.

On the other hand, we have Boston, which in the words of Louis CK, "... isn't an accent. It's just a whole city of people saying most words wrong."

 

[Birdjaguar]

It's "jif" because "gif" (hard g) sounds stupid.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

"Jif" is ridiculous. I don't have a collection of .peanut butter images in my Photobucket account. I do have a lot of .gifs ("gifs").

 

[Timsup2nothin]

The rules of English pronunciation are very complex. They can be worked through with tough thought though.

 

[Takhisis]

Would you pronounce the word it stands for as ‘jraphic’? No! it's about graphics, not a bloody artiodactyle.

 

[Gori the Grey]

And here's another consideration. When "gif" was introduced, English already a word available for -if following the soft g sound: namely, Jif. When an English speaker encounters this new word, and has to decide "hard g or soft?" that speaker thinks "Well, if it was supposed to be soft, it would be jif, so this new word must call for a hard g."

 

[W|M]

If it were to be pronounced ''jif'' it would be spelled ''jif''

 

[Birdjaguar]

The g is there because it stands for "graphics", but as a spoken word gif follows the soft g before i rule. And then there is this:

Urban Dictionary

Graphics Interchange Format. GIFs are image files that are compressed to reduce transfer time. The proper pronunciation of the acronym is a soft "g" sound: like JIF.
The creators of the format, Bob Berry & Steve Wilhite, claim that this soft "g" sound is used. At some point one of them said, "Choosy programmers choose GIF," a play on the peanut butter commercials where "Choosy moms choose Jif." It can also use multiple images for animated effects (animated GIFs).

 

[cardgame]

gif/gift case closed

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Would you pronounce the word it stands for as ‘jraphic’? No! it's about graphics, not a bloody artiodactyle.

Sounds like some weird adjective to do with giraffes.

.gif is "gif" (hard "g").

The other pronunciation is peanut butter. I don't care what the urban dictionary says.

 

[Borachio]

I've followed the debate very closely up to here.

I still say it's pronounced "gif". (Also, at times, "Gif".)

I don't understand what's so controversial about it.

Equally, peanut butter is pronouned "peanut butter". (Awful muck not withstanding.)

 

[Mise]

And here's another consideration. When "gif" was introduced, English already a word available for -if following the soft g sound: namely, Jif. When an English speaker encounters this new word, and has to decide "hard g or soft?" that speaker thinks "Well, if it was supposed to be soft, it would be jif, so this new word must call for a hard g."

That's basically my reasoning. People even say they pronounce it "jif" or "gif", with all sincerity and good faith. I agree that this is probably why more people say "gif" than "jif".

 

[Arakhor]

The g is there because it stands for "graphics", but as a spoken word gif follows the soft g before i rule. And then there is this:

That quote gets into "death of the author" territory. Either the majority of people are just plain wrong, regardless of the creator's intentions, or he made a confusing (but not necessarily bad) call. Moreover, there is no rule saying that G is soft before I, except (generally) in Romance languages.

 

[Flying Pig]

I'm not sure the 'jif is jif, so gif is jif' argument follows. 'Pajama' and 'pagoda' are pronounced differently, so I don't see why g has to be soft in 'gif' when it doesn't in 'pagoda'.

 

[gay_Aleks]

You know, I would've understood the point of this if "jiff" meant something fundamentally different from "giff", but it doesn't. Usually, when you say either of those, people know what you're talking about.

Mostly because people don't stop arguing about it.