Word wonks insist GIFs are really JIFs Not content with somehow managing to proclaim ‘GIF’ the USA’s word of the year for 2012, the lexicographers at Oxford Dictionaries now insist that the correct pronunciation of the word does not use a hard g, as in golf. The dictionary chose GIF as its word of the year because the USA has gone GIF-crazy. Making satirical GIFs …
Maybe you young folks are calling them jifs, but if you were using computers back when Compuserve was still in business, I think you'd have been calling them GIFs with a hard G because at that tune the acronym was spread around with the words it was an acronym of (Graphics Interchange Format) and nowhere in the English speaking world is graphics pronounced with a soft "g".
Compuserv did not provide a pronunciation guide -- it provided the words that the acronym was an acronym of.
I've never heard GIF pronounced jif. If they wanted the J pronunciation they should have spelt it accordingly.
I was around back when GIFs were being used on CompuServe and elsewhere (mid nineties) and I have always pronounced GIF as "jiff". Whenever someone would say G'if it would stir me to irritation.
For any furtherance of this discussion, anyone who says "I say it this way" or "I say it that way" should state what region they are from.
I am from New York City
and I proudly say JIFF!!!
Revisionist history? I recall seeing a GIF when the GIF89a standard had just been finalized, revising the older GIF87 standard with transparency and better compression. The first GIF89a-standard GIF I recall seeing was a photo of the standard's creator, Steve Wilhite, with a caption reading "By the way, it's pronounced 'jif'."
CompuServe's own advertising pronounced it the same way, as I recall.
I'm in Australia, and I've never heard JIFF. Always the hard G GIF here. It stands for "Graphics Interchange Format", and because "Graphics" has a hard G so GIF must have a hard G too.
What does bug me is when people pronounce SAP as one word: "sap". It's supposed to be "S. A. P.", and I should know because I used to be a professional SAP trainer, so there.
"I think the major difference is when you first started to learn about computers - I think we'd see some interesting correlations between age and pronunciation."
I agree. Sad when you refer to a G.U.I. in an IT department meeting and get blank stares. Think they all tended to say "Sequel" as well as "gooey". I've always put it down to having seen them as acronyms before they became commonplace and someone thought it'd be kewl to - I forget the word for making an acronym into a word.
Well I call it a GUI, GIF as before G from Graphics
SQL never got this sequel nonsence. Anyway SQuirreL sounds better, goes with GIraFfe.
I prefer ISAM anyway, got about 10 lines of SQL in our system, however it is fun to use ISAM on an SQL select.
NOTE: Some SQL servers started life as ISAM access client server engines and just grew extremely powerful filtering technology.
I've was running an online BBS in the UK in the 80's before GIF files even existed and never heard it pronounced anything other than JIF. Recently I've heard a few (non-technical) people say "gif", but regarded that as excusable as those crazy Microsoft admins who say "sequel".
In fact I had to re-read the article twice as I couldn't believe The Reg was complaining about the correct pronunciation!
What next, people saying Gnome should be pronounced the same way as the garden variety?
Well, well, and well. Now let's move on to whether the bodger's bid for fame is spelled "kludge" or "kluge", and then by the bye we can find out the whimsical ways the out-of-touch pronounce this gem.
Really, it depends on whether your pronunciation came via assumed reading/definition, or was transmitted orally. Golly, I can see the 'graphics' construction, but I think you're gypping yourself to insist on it.
BTW: yes, definitely "kicks", though recently a long-past-that-stage (she's lawyer now) CICS/Cobol programmer asked me what I meant by "kicks". Later, she kicked me when I tried pronouncing "IANAL". Lif iz liq þat zumthymes.
I have a 1968 Kluge "EHD" "finishing press" ... Foil-stamp, emboss, and die-cut, all on one machine! What a wonderful bit of kit! She's fully functional (if you can manage 440V), shrink-wrapped, and waiting on a new owner ... I use my Heidelberg Windmill for that kind of thing these days. Personal preference.
Both machines are kludges. Wonderful kludges, but kludges nonetheless :-)
It's been pronounced "gif" since the late 80s.
"Gigawatts" is properly pronounced "jiggawatts", as the root of the word is the same as "gigantic". Likewise, the root of "GIF" is the same as "Graphic". Local colloquialisms may vary, of course, but they are not always pronounced the way the terminology was initially vocalized. Another case in point is the "rowter" vs. "rooter" pronunciation for "router". When we invented it, it was "rowter", but YMMV locally.
One wonders if the folks at Oxford will ever learn what NCSA Mosaic was (I can't be arsed to peruse my big dic to see if it's listed ...), and how Netscape built on that structure, including animated GIFs, in the early '90s. This is ancient tech, regardless, nothing to see here, pass along all ...
Ah, well. Beer, because beer has more meaning than this kind of pointless argument.
More because your argument mutates depending on the facts :)
You just said that it should be with a soft g because of the similar case of "gigantic", he proves you wrong and says actually "gigantic" is the exception, at which point you do a 180 from the idea of casuistic argument and just say, "Well things in language are just inconsistent!"
And, "Get used to it"? Meaningless American comebacks do not hide your crappy logic, sir!
"Because language mutates. Get used to it. The concept isn't going to go away."
You lost, my friend. Try to do so with a bit of dignity. And the order to tell people to accept things is hypocritical coming from someone who's just been lecturing on the proper way to pronounce things.
" Greek word γίγας (pronounced gigas not jigas)"
Er, no it's not. γ does not have an equivalent pronunciation in English. It's a soft g in the same way as the Scottish ch is a soft k. Sounds a bit like you're building up phlegm.
There's no reason why we need to pronounce a word derived from a foreign language in the same way they do. And an acronym, when pronounced like a word, can be said any way you want to, because it's a made up word.
Ah the English language is a wonderful thing!
When you clever chaps invented the device that you call a 'rowter' you decided to call it a router - because it routes packets. Route is pronounced 'root' - it is from the French word 'Route' which means route/road/pathway etc.
As you correctly point out though - Beer.
The rooters-v-rowters thing is easy.
There are two different words here. When "router" refers to a piece of network infrastructure that sends packets along the correct (mostly) route, it is "router", that which routes. Verb "route", pronunciation "root", noun "router", pronunciation "rooter". When "router" refers to a woodworking tool, it is a "router" that "routs". "Rout" has two senses - one refers to inflicting a massive military defeat, forcing a broken army to flee, while the other refers to gouging a channel in the surface of a piece of wood. A tool to do the latter is a "router". Verb: "rout", pronunciation "rowt", noun "router", pronunciation "rowter".
Sadly, many of our North American colleagues are convinced that the woodworking pronunciation applies to both groups of words, as it is reasonably common to hear them talk about going along "Rowt 17"...
It's all largely irrelevant. We all know what people mean, even if we think they are ignorant savages for the way they pronounce our language...
You should peruse that dictionary of yours. You'd learn that the first G in the prefix giga- can be said either way. As for router, Americans say rowt, we say route - good that you realise pronunciations differ regionally. We don't need you to point it out. Why the bit about Mosaic? Expect people to be impressed that you know about something (else) from the dim past? I get the impression that's pretty much the only reason you ever pipe up. Pretty sad, Jake.
Yeah, where I come from we knew it must be "jiff" because it stood for "giraffic interchange format". (We primary used it for pictures of giraffes, you see.)
Also, we would trade pictures in this format with friends, but we'd always do it for free - so we considered these were like "Christmas or birthday jifts for your friends." (Only, they could be given on any day of the year.)
Anyway, whatever it's called, it's a jreat format, and I'm so pleased they made it.
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I keep seeing this 'rule' being parroted, but can anyone actually find a source for it? I know of many acronyms in regular use which do not follow it, and there is no such controversy over their pronunciations.
Acronyms are words in their own right.
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