• Kerrigor@kbin.social
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    3 years ago
    • Geography
    • Geology
    • Giraffe
    • Generous

    Just a few examples that come to mind. Additionally, the pronunciation of the individual words included in an acronym DOES NOT determine the pronunciation of that acronym. See SCUBA as an example.

    • glennglog22@kbin.social
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      3 years ago

      Good and very informative, thank you.


      I’m still gonna pronounce it (G)IF though.

    • I Cast Fist@programming.dev
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      3 years ago

      OBJECTION!!

      First and foremost, pronounced Gif there

      Graphics Interchange Format. Not Jraphics. Unless you spell it out as Jee-Ai-Eff

      Also, git isn’t spelled “jit”, it’s not “jit gud”, nor “jit hub”. Other examples that would be wrong: jirl, jirth, jiddy, jirder, jingko

      Most of the ‘ji’ sounding words are rooted from other languages, mostly French (some of them brought over from Latin). Finally, languages where ‘ge’ and ‘gi’ sound like ‘je’ and ‘ji’ say ‘Gif’

      • HatchetHaro@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        3 years ago

        By that logic, “scuba” should be pronounced scuh-ba, and “laser” should be pronounced lah-seer.

        Also “jee” is also how you say the letter “G”.

        Gin, Germany, giraffe, gypsy, gib, giblet. Raising examples of words that start with hard and soft Gs is absolutely pointless when both exist and are equally valid.

        Why are people arguing about how an acronym is pronounced in the English language anyways? Who gives a shit? When you point out a “rule” in English, there will always be exceptions, many exceptions, to that rule. Even English doesn’t even agree with English: “entree” means appetizer in Europe but main course in the US.

        So why do you care so much?

        • I Cast Fist@programming.dev
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          3 years ago

          So why do you care so much?

          Because it’s always fun to poke fun at how chaotic, anarchic and directionless the english language is. Besides, some of its rules feel more like suggestions

  • ornery_chemist@mander.xyz
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    3 years ago

    Well, you see, the g in gif stands for “graphics” which is ultimately from Greek “γραφικός,” and because this is the 21st century, γ in front of a close front vowel is pronounced as neither /g/ nor /d͡ʒ/ but rather /ʝ/, which is pronounced a bit like English’s y, so in its purest rendition gif is really pronounced “yiff”, which doubles as homage to the online communities that OP frequents.

    • Dave@lemmy.nz
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      3 years ago

      If you’re supposed to pronounce it based on the original word instead of how the person who invented it says it, then I’d like to see giff crusaders take on everyone’s terrible pronunciation of words like SCUBA (the U stands for underwater, so should be UH not EW) and NASA (the first A stands for aeronautics so should be pronounced Nair-sa).

      • ornery_chemist@mander.xyz
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        2 years ago

        Don’t worry, I was being 100% facetious! After all, γ is generally believed to have been a hard /g/ in Ancient Greek, which is the version of Greek that “graphic” is based on and is CLEARLY the wrong way to say gif :D

        Kinda sorta un-jerking (but not really) for a moment, I don’t think that I’d include the rhotic in your hypothetical pronunciation in NASA and thus would say /neæ.sə/ over /neɚ.sə/. I also don’t palatalize the U in SCUBA (/sku:.bə/, not /sk^(j)u:bə/), but I suspect that’s just a dialectical difference.

        Edit: I just saw your NZ lemmy instance name and now I understand the vowel choices. Cheers!

  • HatchetHaro@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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    3 years ago

    It’s pronounced however the fuck you want to pronounce it.

    I like to pronounce it “jif” because gin, gentle, Germany, gypsy. Others like to pronounce it “gif” because gift, good, game, girl.

    Don’t pull any bullshit reasons like “it’s not pronounced jraphics”, because if that argument holds any water, JPEG is jay-feg, scuba is scuh-ba, and laser is lah-seer.

    The creator calls it “jif” and wants others to call it “jif”. I don’t give a shit; if some people want to call it “gif”, that’s up to them and I’m not stopping them. English is not a prescriptive language; pronunciations will always differ according to origins and regions and accents and generations. I will not misunderstand you if you pronounce it “gif”, and you will not misunderstand me if I say “jif”.

  • darkpanda@lemmy.ca
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    3 years ago

    The creator of the format, Steve Wihite, says it’s pronounced as JIF, but personally I still say GIF out of habit.

    https://www.cnn.com/2013/05/22/tech/web/pronounce-gif/index.html

    I’ve had similar arguments with people over the pronunciation of Linux, with one person saying it’s “Lie-nicks” because it’s named after “Linus”, but Linus himself has said he pronounces his own name differently depending on the language he’s speaking at the time, but Linux is always pronounced “Lynn-icks.”

    https://youtu.be/5IfHm6R5le0?si=9bQHnIiB0UxBYS2o

    • blanketswithsmallpox@kbin.social
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      3 years ago

      It’s like hearing people who work at Asus call it Asus instead of Asus.

      The only reason they’re saying it’s Asus is because they have to. They say Asus like everyone else at home.

      Also, after a certain amount of time, the word you made up is no longer yours. That be how language works yo.

    • TRSea@lemmy.ml
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      3 years ago

      Why isn’t this higher up? Thanks for the real info, I was going to post this if no one else did.

    • db2@sopuli.xyz
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      3 years ago

      I hate the way it’s pronounced. It should be like Line-ix, but the creator of it decides so as ugly as it is to say it’s lih-nucks.

    • ornery_chemist@mander.xyz
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      3 years ago

      Nonono, you don’t understand, flame wars build character! 'Twere the early aughts that made me the healthy and well adjusted person I am today!

      Or at least, that’s what I’d say if what actually happened wasn’t that I became a jaded bastard and if I didn’t think it was just some ploy to drive engagement to let OP feel popular for a moment… in the best case scenario

    • AdmiralShat@programming.dev
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      3 years ago

      I was tired of this shit 15 years ago and it’s still “”“”“pissing”“”“” off people

  • Some arguments that people keep bringing up that are all wrong and carry zero weight in this discussion:

    • The creator says it’s JIF
    • It’s like Gift, but without the T
    • It’s like Giraffe, but without the raffe
    • It stands for “Graphics Interchange Format” so it’s GIF
    • My dictionary says it’s GIF
    • My dictionary says it’s JIF
    • Obama says it’s GIF
    • Giphy says it’s GIF

    Ultimately, language is very dynamic and changes all the time. Words change their spelling, their meaning and their pronunciation too. Dictionaries tend to lag behind a little bit, but the fact that they publish a new version every year signifies how much languages change. The creator of a word can coin a pronunciation, but ultimately has zero control over whether it will be adopted or not.

    So therefore whichever way most people actually pronounce it is by definition the correct pronunciation. And the polls done on this subject are pretty clear, showing that GIF is the preferred pronunciation, chosen by up to 70% in North America and over 80% in Australia and the UK. This depends on which poll you use, but in general the split is at least 2:1 in favour of GIF, and over time the usage of GIF tends to trend up over time.

    So ultimately, the one true pronunciation is GIF, as decided by the people as a whole. However, most dictionaries do list JIF as an accepted alternative pronunciation, due to the not insignificant minority pronouncing it that way.

    In other words, just choose which pronunciation you prefer, and use that. And try to avoid the pointless debates people like to have on the subject, filled with arguments that don’t carry any weight whatsoever.

    • ted@sh.itjust.works
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      3 years ago

      It’s funny reading this with the soft-g pronunciation and imagining you arguing with yourself saying, “it’s gif! No, gif! No, gif!”

  • Declamatie@mander.xyz
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    3 years ago

    This is actually an issue that should be solved at the English level. All words starting with a ‘g’ that are pronounced ‘j’ should be written with a ‘j’.

    Girl -> Girl
    Giraffe -> jiraffe
    GIF -> GIF

  • mexicancartel@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    3 years ago

    Blame english instead of people probouncing the wrong way. English don’t give a fucking clue about pronounciation only using letters.

    So I can pronounce Blamei as Lemmy. [B silent, a - e sound, mm and m can be pronounced same, and ei can be read as y]

  • WYLD_STALLYNS@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    3 years ago

    Looks like the Jif crowds downvote bombing, yikes.

    So I’m upvoting everyone, let’s try and keep this civil and downvotes out of this! Both sides are technically correct, correcting each other is divisive and playing into trolling.

    • db2@sopuli.xyz
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      3 years ago

      lol no they aren’t both correct. The creator of the format decides and did decide, it’s pronounced like a J just like the peanut butter they did a collaboration with because it’s pronounced just like that. There’s no debate, just trolling.

      • Cyrus Draegur@lemm.ee
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        3 years ago

        just because someone demonstrated intelligence and efficacy in a specific field does not make them an appropriate authority on other shit.

        herman cain, for instance, was a very talented neurosurgeon but still such a fucking moron he literally got his own stupid ass killed through covid denialism.

        this is also why we should still call it twitter no mattter what a dipshit like elon musk wants

        people who have, on paper, a “right” to assign the name or title to something can be wrong, and this is one such case.

        • db2@sopuli.xyz
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          3 years ago

          If you say so, Cathy. That’s your new name by the way, your parents were clearly wrong because reasons, and Cathy is easier to write so that’s you now.

          • Cyrus Draegur@lemm.ee
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            3 years ago

            Ironically more fitting than my legal name :p

            Almost every person who was assigned the same legal name by their parents, I ended up hating their guts, but I’ve never met a Cathy I didn’t like.

            If there becomes an etymological precedent, such as someone actually accurately guessing WHY Cathy would serve greater utility as my name than my legally assigned-at-birth one, I’ll introduce myself to people even outside this thread as Cathy, and furthermore explain why if they actually want to hear it.

            As for this comment thread, hi y’all my name is Cathy. At least, to this person it is. I’ll recognize when they call me Cathy, though.