For me, it may be that the toilet paper roll needs to have the open end away from the wall. I don’t want to reach under the roll to take a piece! That’s ludicrous!
That or my recent addiction to correcting people when they use “less” when they should use “fewer”
If it were supposed to be pronounced “jif” it would have been spelled that way, I don’t give two fucks what Stephen Wilhite said about it either.
we all know it’s actually pronounced “yiff”
uwu
Ah, you mean that old Linux sound server. Very deep reference.
Agreed. I think since the “G” stands for “graphics” it should be pronounced like the G in graphics.
But why? We don’t pronounce any other acronyms like that, so why treat GIF different? The U in SCUBA isn’t pronounced like it is in Underwater. The first A in CAPTCHA isn’t pronounced the same as in Automated and the CH isn’t split up to be pronounced like Computer and Human. The second A in NASA isn’t pronounced like in Administration and the I in PIN doesn’t get pronounced like Identification.
We read acronyms as their own words, not as a collection of the first sounds of each constituent word.
🤷 just cause?
Also, “gift”
Have any examples where the first letter of the acronym isn’t pronounced the same? (I’m sure there are some)
AWOL, OSHA, AIDS, ICE
UFO, not that that’s a super relevant question if we’re already admitting that our opinions are “just cause.” I think at that point the better question is “if just cause, why is there such a split in opinions?”
I think the reason GIF is so contentious is that if we can there’s a tendency to make acronyms sound like words if possible. FUBAR and SCUBA are pronounced the way they are because we’re trained from words like tuba to see the UBA and use a long U. Something like “oofo” (or “uh-fo” as you would likely argue) for UFO sounds like half a word, hence pronouncing the letters individually. The thing about GIF is that both pronunciations sound like a word, and so both feel valid enough that there can be a split in opinions. Any arguments one way or the other is just trying to justify a gut feeling about which way is “proper.”
To be fair, UFO is an initialism, not an acronym. But at the same time, if it was, I think it’d still be an example, because we’d likely pronounce the U like “oo” (as in “boo”), lol
Nearly all acronyms are technically initialisms
Nah, there’s plenty of both, even mixed in very similar subject matter. Example:
An ATM (initialism) takes a card then asks you for its PIN (acronym).
Tbf, you’re pointing out the vowels which make the sounds needed to pronounce the acronym as a word. But I get it, either way, we’re pronouncing the word as a standalone word.
Right in the same neighborhood… Jpeg (photographic)
Time to pronounce it jfeg lol
The S in laser is changed from Lassy to Lazy.
I always respond that in that case, “jpeg” should be pronounced “jfeg”.
My argument for this is that gift is pronounced with a hard g, why would removing the t change anything. I think SW was trolling. But you want to know what’s totally bonkers? My coworker pronounced Git with a soft g. WTF my dude?
Jithub makes me think of a place you go to get an STD.
Gi (martial arts uniform) and gin
Gel and geld
Git is now pronounced “zhee”, with a thimble of espresso.
There are so many other acronyms where you don’t pronounce every letter the same as their constituent words, I don’t understand why GIF is the one people have a problem with accepting. SCUBA, NASA, CAPTCHA, OWCA, etc.
Also .JIF is already a file format and as far as I know, it’s pronounced, “jif” just like it looks. So if “gif” and “jif” are supposed to be pronounced the same way, then why do we even have the letter J? Fuck the letter C too while we’re at it, get a unique sound, you bastard letter.
https://fileinfo.com/extension/jiff
Oh wow that’s actually a really good point!
Now prepare for it to be dismissed! People are too dug in at this point, there’s no going back. The trenches have been dug.
It IS spelled that way
The inventor of the GIF pronounces it with a soft G
Geoffrey
Giraffe
Gymnasium
There are plenty of examples of that pronunciation
all of the words you listed that use a soft g are loanwords from other languages (pretty sure they’re all french) soooo…yeah. no wonder those have different pronunciation.
when you look at anglo-saxon words the difference becomes clear:
all hard g’s.
mixing up languages is the common denominator here.
the G in GIF stands for graphical, neither english nor french in origin, hence the confusion about pronunciation.
alternatively; English is a terrible mess, and the only “correct” pronunciation is reached through general consensus. if the majority pronounces something a certain way, that’s how it should be pronounced.
I have the opposite view, but I thought it would be too incendiary a topic to bring up…
The thing is, that argument doesn’t really hold up, because g in English has two major pronunciations.
Same with Gnome wanting to be pronounced “Gah-nome”, or Latex “Latech”. Just spell stuff the way you want it to be pronounced, or accept that people pronounce it another way
But they did! You’re the one who fucked it up by using an “x” (Latin letter x) instead of a “χ” (Greek letter chi).
(Also, you didn’t capitalize or format it correctly. It’s supposed to be rendered as “LAΤΕΧ”, and yes, those last three letters are
Τ Ε ΧGreek capital tau, epsilon, chi.)🤓
Lol, the only way to be more obtuse would be to say “our project name has no approved transliteration or Unicode string… Render this svg inline or don’t talk about us.”
New hill: All brand names must be composed entirely of pronounceable characters from languages in actual use today
Um, I hate to break it to you, but…
Nuh uh
Gnome is spelt the way they want it to be said. Are you suggesting that gnome should be pronounced ‘nome’ like the garden ornament with a silent g.
Is it not?
I don’t care. Will always be Nome. Fuck Pedo Stallman’s preference.
What a coincidence! This is my favorite hill to troll people on!
It’s absolutely meaningless, it just doesn’t matter, and people are sooo opinionated about it!
If it were meant to be pronounced ‘giff’ as in ‘goober’, it would have been spelled that way. You decide to turn an initialism into an acronym, you get what you get.
It always WAS an acronym. That’s the entire point of the argument. "G"raphics "I"nterchange "F"ormat.
Nobody turned it into an acryonym, it just IS an acronym. That’s not an opinion, it’s a fact. The reason it’s pronounced with a hard G is because Graphics is a hard G.
And Photographic is pronounced as /f/, yet we don’t insist on JPhEG or JFEG. Language is weird, and people often decline to create an acronym from a set of initials that could theoretically be one (“CIA”), or make an acronym where it may not initially seem natural (“HMMWV”).
Choosy nerds choose gif, soft G. :-)
It’s my favourite battle. And when the war against AI comes, it’ll be because the AI will make a final decision and then decide the other side needs to be ultimately defeated.
Jod Himself could descend from heaven, and decree “actually it’s pronounced jif…” And I’d still continue pronouncing it gif.
It’s pronounced gif
Jermany?
I don’t get the controversy. Say it either way and people know what you’re talking about.
If it was supposed to be pronounced jiraffe or jin, it would’ve been spelled that way, i don’t care all these idiots say.
jfeg