Gizmodo asks the important question of the day: “How the Hell Do You Pronounce GIF Anyway?”
Choosy programmers choose “gif” or “jif”?
The pronunciation of “GIF” is specified in the GIF specification to be “jif”, as in “jiffy”, rather then “gif”, which most people seem to prefer. This does seem strange because the “G” is from the word “Graphics” and not “Jraphics”.
AdvertisementSo there you have it—the peanut butter pronunciation is technically the correct one to take. But don’t worry if you decide to go against what the creators of the GIF established anyway—the Oxford English Dictionary has your back because it declares both both the hard g and soft g pronunciations correct.
Nuh-uh. Sorry, I’m sticking with my old school spiral bound/slipcase 1996 first edition version of WiredStyle: Principles of English Usage in the Digital Language, From the Editors of Wired, Edited by Constance Hale, which I purchased at the late lamented Computer Literacy Bookstore on North First Street in San Jose, when the dot.com bubble was just being inflated.
Page 133 says:
GIF
graphic interchange format
Use the acronym and pronounce it "giff" ("jif" is for the peanut butter). GIF is CompuServe's file compression format for images. It has acquired a new life as a synonym for online images or photographs that are compressed as GIFs. It also appears sometimes as .gif in reference to the standard lowercase format of filenames: fetish.gif. Lawyeritis is causing GIF to be rapidly replaced by PNG and JPEG.
And that was the glory days before Wired magazine was purchased by Condé Nast and then completely imploded and beclowned itself by placing a hyphen into the word ‘email.‘
Don’t even get me started on that.
Update: The audio pronunciation guide at Merriam-Webster.com also puts a hard-g on the word.
I’ve always pronounced .gif files as “JIF”. Go figure?
BTW, why do we pronounce or type out long-assed acronyms in full but refuse to say or type the frickin’ letters after a ‘dot’ for a certain filetype? I used to say in literal, “dot j-p-g file” or “dot e-x-e” or “dot g-i-f” when helping people with computer problems over the phone.
Oy.
Everyone I work with (and we’re all reasonably tech savvy) says G-I-F. I’ve never heard “jif” or “gif.”
I do say and hear “jay-peg”.
Maybe it’s an east coast- west coast thing?
It’s Graphical with a hard G, so I’ve always pronounced “gif” with a hard g as in “gift”, though I have to admit more words starting with “gi” have a soft g than any other “g-vowel” words
It’s pronounced “worthless legally-entangled graphics format” as far as I’m concerned.
In English orthography, vowels come in two varieties, broad and narrow. The broad vowels are a, o, u, and (usually) y. The narrow are e, i and y (when pronounced as a long i). A g followed by a narrow vowel is soft, as giraffe or giant. A g followed by a broad vowel is hard, as in gab or goat. When you want to follow a hard g with a narrow vowel sound, you must labialize it, usually by interposing a u as in guide or guess.
So “jiff” for .GIF files. Anyone who disagrees is only moderately literate.
Well, I guess that’s one way to describe Merriam-Webster.
Yep, you’re right Danby, I’m only “moderately literate”, especially ‘cus I don’t understand that the (American) English has hard and fast pronunciation which NEVER have exceptions (eyes rolliing). For example, I now realize that I’ve been mispronouncing the words: gig, gigabyte, giddy, giggle, gill, gimmick, gimlet, gimbals, girl, girder, girth, gizmo, gizzard, not to mention, those famous brand guitars, Gibson…
But, as I posted before, the biggest clue that my pronunciation is the most logical is the word, GIFT! So, by adding a “t” to the acronym, gif, it suddenly goes from a soft g to a hard g?? Besides the word “jiff” already exists with that pronunciation.