WebP does everything GIF did, just better. The only problem is adoption. Maybe a similar, single-syllable name could have helped.
- Ends the pronunciation debate: hard G in the 1987 filetype, soft G in the 2010 one
- Looping soundless video gets a name that’s short and does not refer to a terribly inefficient format (that “gif” sharing sites often no longer use anyway), plus some wrong people have been using it already
- Software peer-pressured into supporting it (nobody wants to hear “they don’t support JIF” about their software)
You’ll never end the debate about how to pronounce Gif. Homophones exist. There’s a pronunciation guide in the original documentation, and that didn’t end the debate.
There is no debate. It’s pronounced GIF with a hard G.
Graphics Interchange Format
Anyone who says “jif” is just a moron who probably also says “reesees peesees”
That’s not an argument. You’re just being insulting and belligerent. Acronyms are not pronounced based on their constituent words. You need to let that go, because it makes you the asshole.
There are two factors that determine how words are pronounced in English, and this is precisely true of every fucking word in the language. There’s the original pronunciation, and then there’s common usage. If English borrows a word from another language, like “bruschetta,” there’s the original pronunciation “brooskett” and then there’s the American pronunciation “brooshetta” because fuck all that. Say either one and you’ll be understood, and you’ll have spoken English. Neither is “wrong” because people know you want some expensive salsa on tiny toast.
It’s the same with gif. There was the original pronunciation, and then basically nobody said the word out loud for 20 years because only nerds cared about the extension format wars. Then the internet brought memes to your grandmother, and suddenly everyone was sharing dancing_baby.gif and hardly anyone knew how to say it. People actively avoided saying the word because they didn’t want to sound stupid.
Then one day, some extra stupid people decided that they had enough of that bullshit, and they would not be made to feel stupid for not knowing how to pronounce a word. They shouldn’t have felt stupid, because again, English doesn’t work that way, but at that time the nerds were strutting around like they had invented confidence. Technical pronunciations were like a geek shibboleth that signaled you had in fact RTFM, and because pendulums swing, techies were bullying people online about it.
But I did call them stupid people, because they were stupid. Not because they didn’t know how to pronounce a word, but because they chose obstinate ignorance over truth. There was a common, original pronunciation for gif, and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with it. The fact that graphics is pronounced with a hard g doesn’t matter in the slightest, because that’s not a rule that ever existed before someone got mad about gifs. The only thing worse than a shitbag who bullies you for being wrong about something is a shitbag who bullies you for being right about something.
Talk how you like. This is, for now, a free world. English evolves, and life is too short to spend your days arguing with an amateur linguist online, because this guy has two thumbs and will absolutely continue this conversation until you regret engaging in it. Be free. Your hard on for the hard g is a stone you carry around for no one, and all you have to do is set it down.
Or it’s the inventor of GIF.
Yeah, but what does he know?
Anyway what is aJif anyway, it sounds like soap.
When it was a thing way back when, everyone pronounced it with a soft G
what does that mean ?
Homophonia is a huge issue
Have coarse wee dew knot wont two bee band buy Maudes fore braking roules.
I hate how fluently I could read that
Jraphics Interchange Format
Sure, but for consistency you also have to pronounce JPEG as “jay-feg”.
G on it’s own can do hard or soft sounds. P needs the H to do the F.
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Self-Contained Uoonderwater Breathing Apparatus
Light Aimplification by Ztimulated Uhmission of Radiation
Acronyms do not work that way! It isn’t a thing. You’re talking nonsense.
And it was WRONG
There is no wrong. English doesn’t have wrong pronunciations. You’re either understood or you aren’t. There’s the original pronunciation, and there’s the new pronunciation. Both are used, so neither is wrong.
Agree
But also. Jif is wrong.
You’re welcome to pronounce any word any way you like. I’m not going to change the way I’ve been saying a word for 30 years just because you don’t like it. If you’re understood, it’s all good.
Humans are even more horrible that this first glance suggests. Imagine, one day, the debate truly ends and a single pronunciation for GIF is universally established and recognized by everyone. A group of humans will start to intentionally mispronounce it (or misspell it) just for the aggravation it will generate in others or for their own amusement.
This is where the meme-like behavior of deliberately misspelling the popular phrase (at the time) “all correct” as “oll korrect”. This was later abbreviated as “o.k.” and then eventually “ok”. A phrase we likely use dozens or hundreds of times a day is meme-speak from 1839. source
Thanks for that link, I’ve long wondered the origin of OK!
So what you’re saying is that just like articles—THEY DIDN’T READ. Then they perpetuated fake news until it was accepted by half the audience.
More than half. Less than 25% of people use the original pronunciation of gif, and two people in this thread have repeated the absurd misconceptions that popularized the new pronunciation.
Well, I like peanut butter and that’s how it’s pronounced. I guess I’m part of the quarter gang.
There’s dozens of us! I’m just old enough to remember when the file format was new and people talked about it.