[2017-08-19] gif

Blame Quintushalls for this.

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Tony
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[2017-08-19] gif

Post by Tony »

https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/gif

We should all commit to putting this debate to rest. The Earth is not flat, kids should be vaccinated, and GIF is pronounced "jiff."

Steve Wilhite, who came up with the Graphics Interchange Format while at Compuserve, pronounced it "jiff" with a soft "G". He said he intended for it to sound like the "Jif" peanut butter brand, and would reinforce that by saying "Choosy developers choose GIF." Wilhite reiterated this at the 2013 Webbys when he accepted his lifetime achievement award with the graphically-presented statement "It's pronounced 'jif', not 'GIF'." Call me old-fashioned, but I believe the right of people to name their own progeny should be respected.

If Wilhite is ultimately unsuccessful in his quest, however, he won't the first victim of such gross injustice. Larry Boucher, whose pioneering work Shugart Associates and later at Adaptec earned him recognition as the "father" of the set of ANSI standards now known as the Small Computer System Interface (SCSI), wanted that acronym to be pronounced "sexy". Alas, Dal Allan of ENDL proposed the pronunciation "scuzzy." And so it is.

Geekoid
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Re: [2017-08-19] gif

Post by Geekoid »

also:


English words starting with 'GI' is the 'J' sound. That's the rule. Look it up.


The primary examples incorrect people use is: 'Gift' but Gift comes from old Norse 'gipt' Since it came into English, and was not created as an English word, it retained the hard G. This is was English does, it finds foreign words in alleys, mugs them, riffle their pockets for loose change, and then throws whatever is left into use.
.

That why,. it logically is hard 'g'. its the etymology. People saying it's soft g are just ignorant people latching onto an emotion 'feeling' and scream down every one else.

Side note: What the developer called it is correct, but ultimately irrelevant. If he pronounced 'tim', it would still be wrong, even though he created it.

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Felstaff
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Re: [2017-08-19] gif

Post by Felstaff »

Geekoid wrote:English words starting with 'GI' is the 'J' sound. That's the rule. Look it up.
My giddy, giggling gibbon gives gilded gimmicky gizmos to girdled girthy girlfriends.

Giant ginger gibbets gibed the gypsy gimcrack with gin.... you get the gist.

There's no rule about hard or soft Gs at the start of words beginning with 'Gi'.
Tony wrote:I believe the right of people to name their own progeny should be respected.
The right to name, perhaps, but not pronounce. For instance, Adolf Dassler's hypocorism "Adi" is universally pronounced "Addy" (unless you're putting on a ridiculous cod-French ("Frrrrronsh") accent, and you'd say "A-dee. Hon hon hon.") So when he made his company out of the first few letters of his first and last name, Adidas, it should be pronounced "ADDy Dass". Yet the overwhelming majority of Americans pronounce it "a-DEE-dass", which is the incorrect pronunciation. Perhaps with a multimillion dollar marketing campaign, you could strive to ensure every American pronounces it correctly, or you could just let language do its "fluid thing" and stop trying to hold back the river of change with a single damp tissue.
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Grentain

Re: [2017-08-19] gif

Post by Grentain »

See, and here I thought there was going to be the discussion about how the votey tells us that "Hyeef" is a mixture of Yiff, Gif, and Jif, which makes me believe that "Hyeef" is referring to a very specific variety of animated imagery which depicts anthropomorphic pornography involving peanut butter.

jlf65

Re: [2017-08-19] gif

Post by jlf65 »

Not a single dictionary shows gift with a soft G. Not a single person SAYS gift with a soft G. And people pronounce GIF with a hard G because graphics is pronounced with a hard G. It may not be what the originator intended, but it's easier to remember what it stands for when you use a hard G.

gvest

Re: [2017-08-19] gif

Post by gvest »

Geekoid wrote:also:
it came into English, and was not created as an English word
What, then, is a "natural" English word? Sure it is easy to say that "bikini" and "detente" are not, but Proto-Germanic roots are as Anglish as you can get.

RyanW
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Re: [2017-08-19] gif

Post by RyanW »

The problem is you're trying to apply standard English rules to a made up word. And there are no standard English rules.

I suggest we use the voiced palato-alveolar sibilant: the same as the first sound in genre.
"Most of the quotes you read on the internet are misattributed." - George Washington

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Felstaff
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Re: [2017-08-19] gif

Post by Felstaff »

It's not a made-up word, in the neologistic sense, but an acronym. All acronyms are 'made-up words', yet they still follow a universal interpretation of the English rules of pronunciation.

If I made up a word ("Hoikster"), then the pronunciation of that word is constrained by standard English rules. I can't alter its phonetic interpretation, even if I trademarked it.

I would say the hard-G of 'Graphics' gives the most sway to pronouncing it GHIF rather than JIFF (or ʒIF), despite the inventor's adamance. This whole sorry mess could've been avoided if Wilhite had taken the first two letters of each word of Graphics Interchange Format, 'cause then it'd be called 'Grinfo', three-letter constraint of filetype suffixes be damned.

mic_drop.grinfo
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gvest

Re: [2017-08-19] gif

Post by gvest »

Felstaff wrote: If I made up a word ("Hoikster"), then the pronunciation of that word is constrained by standard English rules.
While the "ster" part is pretty solid, I immediately come up with 3 different ways to say "Hoik" (and thus the whole word) just by looking at it. I blame the French.

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Felstaff
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Re: [2017-08-19] gif

Post by Felstaff »

And the most popular one ("Høëk-stəhr") would win out in the end, despite the inventor's insistence on its true pronunciation ("Hoḯjkstűrr") or common riff-raff IPA-loving one ("hɔɪkstər").

themoreyouknow.grinfo
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GollyRojer
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Re: [2017-08-19] gif

Post by GollyRojer »

Felstaff wrote:This whole sorry mess could've been avoided if Wilhite had taken the first two letters of each word of Graphics Interchange Format, 'cause then it'd be called 'Grinfo', three-letter constraint of filetype suffixes be damned.
And then Grinfo would have been shortened to gri for the filetype suffix, and the argument would be over whether it is pronounced ˈgrī (grime), gri (grit) or ɡrē (gris-gris).

gvest

Re: [2017-08-19] gif

Post by gvest »

GollyRojer wrote:
Felstaff wrote:This whole sorry mess could've been avoided if Wilhite had taken the first two letters of each word of Graphics Interchange Format, 'cause then it'd be called 'Grinfo', three-letter constraint of filetype suffixes be damned.
And then Grinfo would have been shortened to gri for the filetype suffix, and the argument would be over whether it is pronounced ˈgrī (grime), gri (grit) or ɡrē (gris-gris).
ɡrē, obviously. The other two you can make flimsy arguments for, so they cancel out.

Capable Runt

Re: [2017-08-19] gif

Post by Capable Runt »

Interesting how we as a society have accepted that "route" has two pronunciations that are sometimes used interchangeably, and "tomato" is held up as the poster child for trivial differences, but ".gif" is still sizzling hot on the table.

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Apocalyptus
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Re: [2017-08-19] gif

Post by Apocalyptus »

Maybe because it's newer?
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Capable Runt

Re: [2017-08-19] gif

Post by Capable Runt »

The word is new, the issue is not. I don't see a reason to go through this shit every single time a new word, invention, concept, accent, or dialect comes around. If words can sometimes have silent letters, and the letter "y" is sometimes a vowel, then it shouldn't be an unreasonable addition that some words can sometimes have two pronunciations.

If you can't agree to that, then you can at least pretend to agree, never actually say ".gif" in a verbal conversation, and then stab anyone that does.

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