• Riven@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    4 months ago

    It’s an acronym standing for graphic interchange format. Not that I care all that much tbh. Reminds me of parents naming their kid cVIIItlyn. Sure you can pronounce it whatever you want, doesn’t make you any less stupid. Also, iirc it was invented by a team, what do the rest of them say?

    • Varyk@sh.itjust.works
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      4 months ago

      Only one guy is listed as the creator, Steve wilhite, who says “jif” is correct, famously and infamously making the pronouncement with a gif when he received his lifetime achievement award haha.

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CBtKxsuGvko

      Apparently, a common joke around his office was “choosy developers choose gif”, a play on jif commercials.

    • merc@sh.itjust.works
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      4 months ago

      It’s an acronym standing for graphic interchange format.

      That doesn’t affect how it’s pronounced.

      LASER stands for Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation. If you were going to pronounce it based on how those words are pronounced it would be “Lahseer”.

      The best reason to pronounce “gif” with a hard g is that the closest word we have is “gift” and that uses a hard g.

      • Riven@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        4 months ago

        Just wanna say I didn’t downvote you.

        I get your argument, maybe we SHOULD pronounce it lahseer, sounds cool.

        • merc@sh.itjust.works
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          4 months ago

          Lahseer does sound cool, but I’m in favor of words being spelled as fonetikuhly as possible in English.

          • Tlaloc_Temporal@lemmy.ca
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            4 months ago

            In order to do that, we have to clean up what each letter does first. The whole reason the gif fight started is because G and J overlap in sound values a lot. And don’t get me started on S, C, K, & Q.

            • merc@sh.itjust.works
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              4 months ago

              And O.

              But, still, there are letters that have fairly consistent pronunciations. Where possible we should try to stick with those.

              • Tlaloc_Temporal@lemmy.ca
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                4 months ago

                I’ve given up on vowels. Mercedes, Echinacea, Manoeuvre, shield, beige, just throw them around until it looks right.