looking forward to the comments

The author calls it JIF. He intended it as Jif because he has butter fingers and like butter brand JIF.
I'm used to hard G though.
- And British people made English, but they don't say anything right either.
  
  Little ironic.... but ok.
  
  But the food is delicious.
- I know he says it’s pronounced “jif”, but I just don’t care. It’s like “gift” without the t
  
  Let's be honest here, English does not have that level of consistency. "Women" is pronounced with an "i" for christ sake
  
  Or like "gin" with an f?
  
  Say the word "though" in your head. Then add a "t" to it. Would you really argue that "though" and "thought" are pronounced the same simply because they're the same spelling save for a final "t"?
  The easiest "rule" is that the creator can decide how to pronounce and spell it lol. Taking English rules that don't even apply 100% of the time to its own words and trying to hold made-up words to the same standards just sounds silly to me haha
  
  It's more like giant or gin or giraffe.
- Yeah, I always read it as "Jif" then came the correctness police of Reddit and I was bullied into "Gif" by guilt.
  And now some 8-40 years later, I feel anything but "Gif" is wrong. Help!
  
  Help!
  Absolutely not, I don't say this often but those bullies did the right thing.
  
  Do you pronunce it guilt or juilt? Okay bad question
- Good thing word coiners don't get full control over word usage.
  
  They do though when they are right.
- Can you really just drop a hard G like that though? Thought that was only okay for them to say
- I'm sorry, but he waited 26 years to tell everyone how it's pronounced... at this point you can go with the majority, or stick with however you want to pronounce it.
- He made the format, not English.
  
  Ya and in English, we pronounce things like giant, giraffe, gin, etc. with a "j" sound.
  
  Nobody made english, nor is a language static. It is an everchanging result of millions of people using and evolving it.
  A language that doesn't change is dead, like latin is. So any rule of how something is supposed to be in a language is subject to time and place, but never absolute.
- He didn't intend shit. He just wanted to watch the world burn!
- This makes no sense. It stands for "Graphics Interchange Format", do they pronounce it jraphics too?
  
  There are so many examples in this thread alone as to why this rule doesn't work.
  SCUBA: the U is for "underwater" and the A is for "apparatus". We don't pronounce it "SC-uh-B-ahhh".
  JPEG: The P is for "photographic". We don't pronounce it "JayFeg".
  LASER: The E is for "emission". We don't pronounce it "Lay-See-R".
  RADAR: The second A is for "And" (lol). We don't pronounce it "Ray-Day-R".
  The easiest "rule" is just the guy who made it up can dictate how they want it spelled and to pronounce. The word is made up anyway, and isn't subject to rules that actual English words have been subjected to for however long the language evolved.
  
  How do you pronounce JPEG? Jay-feg?
- I don't really give a fuck what he intended. If he wanted it to be pronounced JIF he should have named it that.
  
  So how do you pronounce giraffe or giant or gin?
  
  Copyright concerns?

G in gif stands for graphics just like how P in jpeg stands for poto
- I feel that if you're going to bother people who pronounce it "Jiff" because Graphics, you have to also say "Sc-uh-bÆ" and "Lass-ear" and "ray-dare."
  
  Don't forget Nay-saa.
- Gesus Krissed....
  
  He did what now?
- G in gif stands for graphics just like how P in jpeg stands for potato
  FTFY
- Wait until they find out about scuba and laser
  
  skubba
- So really it should be pronounced "jfeg"
- yeah it's not "jraphics"

English is phonetically inconsistent, you can find examples to support both ways of pronouncing it.
- There are some consistencies in letter patterns, just not in individual letters. For example, no word that starts with go-, ga-, or gu- pronounces the g like a j (except for the archaic gaol, and there's a reason the spelling was changed to jail). It's mainly limited to ge- and gi- words.
  Inconsistencies with the other options are probably due either to how the term came into English (English is practically built on loanwords) or some other subsequent pattern of letters I'm too lazy to try to identify.
  
  The J does what it wants
- The only real rule is that words come and go and change organically. People don't just decree that a word needs to change like some king of language.

Hard G and soft G are both acceptable pronunciations, the only way to be wrong in the situation is to insist that your preferred way to pronounce it is the only correct way to pronounce it
Oh, except silent G. Silent G is wrong.
- yiff?
  
  How do I delete someone else's comment
- Gif you say so
- Hard R would also be wrong.
  
  I will never not smile when this comes up. Not because of the word, but because of Linus.
  https://youtu.be/MFDiuBomSuY
- No Gifs or Gbuts
- Based and true
- Gigh, as the Scots pronounce it. That’s the only way.

Man that's so clever and new. Like a giraffe drinking gin

In English the correct way to pronounce something is the way that will most reliably communicate to your intended audience without ambiguity or distraction.
Since my intention is usually to convey my superior knowledge of trivia and/or to stir shit up, I pronounce it with a soft g.
- So no one should be able to say 'sontimeters'? Cause that's super distracting.
- For the same reason I like to pronounce jraphics.
- I love you

I seen a guraffe at the zoo!
- And it had a gift.
  
  Was it a gyro?
  
  Sorry, did you say it had a gif?
- I mean it's funny but of course you are objectively wrong.
  
  I hate you feel that way. Can I get you a jift to make you feel better?
  It will be a guygantic jift. A large external drive that can hold MANY jiggabytes. Just be careful, it will take a lot of power. 1.21 jiggawatts at least.
- You lie guraffos are lies told by whores and god
- This one is good
- Don't you mean a jay-raffe?
- But the g in gif stands for "graphical," not "giraffe!" You silly goose
  
  That's easily the worst reasoning for the hard-g considering how we don't pronounce the letters of most acronyms based on the phrases they come from.
  
  yeah man, just like you go scuba diving oo-nderwater.
  it's a dead end. We can't pretend that "g" can't also be pronounced as "j", or that the words making up the acronym matter. It's all preference and since GIF's dad called it "jif", I'm gonna call it "jif". At least that's based on something beyond my own hubris.
  
  Just like jpeg is pronounced "jfeg"
  
  The p in jpeg stands for “photographic”.
  So… “jay-feg”?

And how do you pronounce giraffe? Giant?
- And how do you pronounce gift? Gondola?
  
  The guy-ant ger-raffe jave me a jift on his jondola.
  
  See, the one thing I consistently see from the hard g side is a lack of understanding of fundamental phonics. Like, say it how you want, but at least make cogent arguments.

I don't really care for a logical explanation. JIF just sounds fucking stupid and yall know it.
- I call it Jife just to piss off everyone.
  
  Zhaif! XD
- That's how I feel about Giff though -- yuck what an ugly word.
  I grew up eating Jif and we loved it
  
  Not to mention it’s literally a “Choosy devs choose GIF” joke, aping “Choosy moms choose Jif”. Soft-g homies for jife.
  
  Nah, too damn close to jizz.
- I'm guessing you sip on ghin and juice (laid back)?

This comment section is killing me lmao.
You have people saying that language is fluid, and that one person cannot decide which pronunciation is correct. Then, in that same comment, they say that their preferred pronunciation is obviously correct.
Hard g, soft g, you do you. It really doesn't change much.
- This is fair. My only issue is with those that go "but the creator says it's pronounced this way! The other way is clearly wrong!" as if what the creator says actually matters. It doesn't. Especially when said creator waits 26 years to announce how he pronounces it.
  
  I've always thought he's just playing a huge prank on people.
  
  To be honest, it really doesn't bother me either way
- I pronounce it "zhif" like the sound from zsa zsa Gabor's name. It irritates everyone equally, and gives me a happy.
  Also, if you're familiar with the gnome/guh-nome debate on the Linux side of the playground, pronouncing it with a glottal stop at the beginning will give everyone around an immediate stroke.
  
  I respect this

I say jif. But when heard someone say jithub instead of github i felt the cringe

Not this again....lol it's gif god damn it!
- I did used to say gif but now I say gif.

It's pronounced gif with a hard G.
When I rise to power anyone who disagrees will be immediately found guilty of thought crimes and sentenced to castration, followed by execution, in that order.
- Think maybe you need to get out more

Next thing people will be pronouncing SQL as "sequel" and then where will we be?
- That one makes perfect sense though.
  
  No it's absolutely Squirrel
- Nowhere good, that's for sure.

Jood Gob with this.

Look, I say Jif, but this meme is hilarious. Can't we just stop the silly fighting?
- No. My hard drive still has 1.21 more jigabytes of free space available for more memes.
  
  Jijabytes
  
  What the hell is a jogabyte?!

When I first encountered the .gif, I read it as G-I-F, as in jee aye ef. From there it was a jiffy to pronounce it as jif.
- At least you don't pronounce it as yiff

Wilhite says jif, I use jif. He created it, he gets to name it.
- If he didn't want people to pronounce it two different ways he should have spelled it differently.
  
  Right? And people get mad at me for saying gur-affe at the zoo. They should have spelt it different if they wanted me to say jir-affe.
  Anyway, back to work on my jithub project.
  
  I feel that way about studio ghibli
  
  Yea, should have. As another commenter posted, Wilhite should have called it the jraphics interchange format.
- He didn't tell anyone it was pronounced jif till a great many years later, after most people were pronouncing it gif.
  He lost the right to dictate how everyone else pronounces it for that reason alone. So fuck him. =)
  Edit: It was made in 1987 and he waited till 2013. Lmao, he lost that fight long ago.
  
  I understand that some people feel very strongly about pronunciations. So be angry about the correct pronunciation, heck, don't use the correct pronunciation, who cares?
  But Wilhite made it, so he gets to name it, regardless of the popularity of later pronunciation debates that largely take place in a forum where you can't actually pronounce the word because we're all typing. It's pretty funny.
  
  Most people pronounced it correctly. Hard G was mocked on many tech sites and sites like 4chan.
- Ah, yes "Jrafic interchange format"
  
  Ah, yes. NaySAh(NASA), SaKUBA(SCUBA), MeDAS(MIDAS), JayFEG(JPEG), RADiR(RADAR) ...
  
  Giraffe
  
  Acronyms are not pronounced based on the words that form them.
  
  That's what the inventor chose, so yup. Unfortunately, jif is the correct pronunciation.
  My favorite example of this is aluminum. Twice now, I've spoken to British English speakers that insist aluminum is pronounced the British way. And when I point out aluminum is an American invention, they check their phone, roll their eyes, and accept that I can say it that way, but they never will.
  And euphonically they're correct, the British pronunciation of aluminum sounds way cooler. I used to use gif until I looked up the usage history specifically for these moments, hahaha. But that's not its name. So I use jif.

such a low quality jPHeg... tsk tsk

https://gizmodo.com/the-creator-of-the-gif-says-its-pronounced-jif-he-is-509179289
- I pronounce it jizmodo
  
  How do you distinguish from jizmodo the porn site?

Gesus christ lemmy

This is the reason I say Gesus and oh my Jod, now. Can't say everyone appreciates it.

We were literally told it was pronounced "jif" by the creator. Sorry if it hurts your little feelings
- Whoever invented all the words in that sentence certainly didn't pronounce them like you do.
  
  I mean, id pronounce them the way the creators said if they were here and specifically told me how to pronounce it 💁🏻
- I'm 99% sure the creator was either being sarcastic, or he decided to be a contrarian for the internet clicks. "GIF" is an acronym that stands for "Graphics Interchange Format". It makes very little sense to intentionally pronounce it like a peanut butter brand.
  
  Of all the arguments this one always feels like the absolute weakest. There are so many acronyms that are not pronounced like that it's unreal. Unless you commit to pronouncing it jayfeg for the rest of your life...
  
  actually, gif is an acronym. Specifically not an initialism. That means that it is pronounced as a single word (like "scuba", but unlike "fbi" or "nsa").
  The pronunciation of the acronym does not have to conform to the original pronunciation of the letters.
  Examples:
  the "p" in jpeg stands for the "ph" sound, but we pronounce it as a hard "p".
  The "u" in scuba stands for "underwater". We still pronounce it as "scOOba" not "scAAba"
  So why is "gif" any different? Its creator chose the soft G for the pronunciation of the acronym (not its expansion), and therefore it is the correct one, simply because there is no rule about how it should be pronounced, so the choice was his. He made it
  
  Contrarian when he said "choosy developers choose gif" (implying the soft g) in 1987? I think that precedes the internet debate a little
  
  Yeah not everyone is from the US and had that brand. The soft g has always made sense as much hard g, especially if you say the words Gin or Gym besides it.
  
  I'm also convinced he did that just to be an annoying contrarian back in 2013 when he announced how he pronounces it.
  Dude likely never actually cared.
  
  The joke at the time was "Choosy Developers Choose GIF"
  
  It's SQL all over again.
- He waited til 2013 to come out and say that though, when he made it back in 1987. What he wants doesn't matter.
  The most popular way to pronounce a word wins; Sorry if it hurts your little feelings.
  
  The joke at the time was "Choosy Developers Choose Gif"
- he dead though
- So?
- The British are the creator of the English language but they pronounce nearly every word wrong.

I say it with a soft G. Fight me.

does it really matter? as long as you passed third grade reading comprehension you can use context from the conversation to understand that the person is talking about a moving image instead of a peanut butter brand.

I make everyone angry by pronouncing it as gife
- Yes but is that jife of gife?
  
  Yes. It is.

Gif stands for "Graphics Interchange Format". If it were pronounced "jif", it would be "Jraphics Interchange Format".
It is a Graphics Card, not a Jraphics Card!
- Do you pronounce Sim, Vin, and pin like sime, vine, and pine? The I for all of them stand for identification, so you have to stress the i.
  What about ICE? The C stands for customs, you must pronounce it like "ike". Or do you pronounce customs as sustoms?
  
  Or do you pronounce customs as sustoms?
  nope, but I will now.
- Right, like how scuba is pronounced "scuhbba" and but "scooba" because it is "self contained underwater breathing apparatus"
- But what about Jee Pee Yoo
- https://gizmodo.com/the-creator-of-the-gif-says-its-pronounced-jif-he-is-509179289
- That's the same reason why it's hard for me to watch linux youtubers, guh-nome.

- The following words are exceptions to this so-called "rule":
  Give
  Get
  Together
  Girl
  Gear
  Here's a list, there's like 100 of them.

This always attracts pedants whining "the creator said to pronounce it like jif!" and it's like, OK, A) That's an appeal to authority, one of the best known logical fallacies B) The creator of Mother's Day spent over 30 years trying to get people to stop celebrating it, but too bad, I'm still gonna wish my Mom a happy Mother's Day, you know?
- Appeal to authority is a fallacy if a non-expert in the field is appealed to. However he was the creator, does he not get to name it?
  Don't get me wrong it's a hard g for me too but it's not a fallacy tbh.
- it's not an appeal to authority, if the choice was his, not ours, to begin with. Tons of acronyms have letters that are pronounced differently. It could be arbitrary because an acronym is its own separate word.
  Divers don't dive oonderwater with their scuba gear. And when they take a camera with them, they don't get the pictures saved as jaypheg files.
  The choice can be arbitrary. Since it is, the creator gets to decide. Like whoever discovers a new species of creature gets to name it whatever they like.
- I won tell you you're wrong just don't say I'm wrong for saying with a soft g.
  
  ^^^this. Nobody is "wrong". Say it how you want to. Either way is fine. But get all cocky and tell me I'm wrong for using a soft g and you better be able to defend that assertion, because I've heard every argument for why a hard g is the only correct way to say it and they're all bs.

Shadow's take
- Best argument, right here.
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  Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
  I'm open-source, check me out at GitHub.
- Holy shit that was so jood

I guess you call them jay fegs right?
- Jay-paygs

Choosy mothers choose Jif.
- The modern day shibboleth. Are you someone who reads the fucking manual, or do you believe instagram influencers when they make up rules for pronunciation? Or maybe you're just an old fart who has been using gifs since before people didn't know how to pronounce it, like me.

Lmao I dunno why but I find the bird puppet and jod combo hilarious.

Back to this old debate again. I thought we had come to an answer.
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  Good bot

This is why I pronounce it jif, a gif is about 5 seconds or even up to about a minute in length. (originally)
it takes a short amount of time to watch from start to finish, so its "done in a jiffy." not a giffy.

Just pronounce it the way you pronounce it. I say gif, because in the uk we have a well known brand of lemon juice called jif so it makes sense to not pronounce gif un the same way. Maybe in other countries they dont have jif.
- Well known? I wouldn't say that all I've never heard of it before you mentioned it and no one in my area has either and we all say gif with the soft g. It's a cute bottle for it though.
  
  Really? Jif has been a thing since the 1950s. It was marketed to go on pancakes for shrove tuesday and thats always how ive known about it. According to wikipedia it set a uk precident of protecting an unregistered trademark product when a US company made a similarly packaged lemon juice.
  They also sell it in green bottles.

Look, it’s not Jrafics Interchange Format.
Case closed.
- How do you Pronounce SCUBA?
  
  Something's creepy under boat..... Andy!
  
  [skʌbɑ], right?

Now that's a Jod I could jet behind.

Doesn't matter
https://youtu.be/4AMn-7qalgw

The letter G itself is pronounced with the “j” sound.
I started out pronouncing GIF by saying the letters: “g-I-f.” It eventually shortens into “jif.”
- Weird, you could totally spell G as jee. I wonder how many letters you can accurately spell without using the letter itself
  
  This is the best I can do. a,b,see,d,e,eph,jee,h,eye,ghey,caigh,l,m,n,o,p,cue,r,s,t,yew,v,double-you,ekes,whi,z
  
  Geigh
- Graphics Interchange Format. Not Jraphics Interchange Format.
  
  Joint Photographic Experts Group. Not Joint Potographic Experts Group.
  National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Not National Ah-ronautics and Space Administration.
  Self-Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus. Not Self-Contained Oonderwater Breathing Uh-pparatus.
- So you pronounce graphics as jraphics?
  
  that's a single word. When we make acronyms, they're subject to the pronunciation rules of the new word they've become, not the word the letter is sourced from -- This is pretty obvious if you think about it for a minute.
  It's NATO but we say atlantic It's SCUBA but we say underwater

Tbh, I used to pronounce it 'JIF' (because in my native language, 'gi' is always a soft 'g', and I usually speak that), but now that I think about it in English, a hard G makes more sense.
In Romanian I also pronounce gigabytes as jigabytes :)
- the creator of gif pronounces it as jif
  
  I bet the inventor didn't have a jirlfriend.
  
  Well, he's probably better at programming, than language then ¯⁠\⁠_⁠(⁠ツ⁠)⁠_⁠/⁠¯

It's pronounced "Giraffe".
- National Ahronotics and Space Ahgency
  
  I suppose you pronounce jpeg as “j-fey-g” too, then, since the P stands for “Photographic”?
  Or perhaps you argue that to doesn’t count since it’s on the P and not the Ph included in the acronym. In which case I guess we’re just abandoning all connection to the root words and we’re back to the fact that it’s okay to pronounce it “jif”.
  Also the creator pronounces it jif because he was goofing on Jif peanut butter and wanted a “choosy devs choose GIF” joke. So I’m going with that.
  Also it makes people mad and that’s funny.
  
  You'll have to show other examples of phonetic acronyms requiring their original word's pronunciation and not the word it's become.
  it's not NA(h)TO
  
  Jraphics
  
  Doesn't it hurt your point that we don't pronounce giraffe with a 'z' anymore? Pronunciations change, ultimately as long as people understand what I mean when I say "jif" it's fine.
  
  No, it actually stands for "Giraffe-ic Interchange Format", because giraffes can stand, and I love giraffes. 💖🦒

I’m going to avoid all controversy and just make the g silent. It’s ‘if from now on.
If I say it fast enough, people will just assume I use their version.
- That's a big if.
  
  pronounciation = input("gif or jif") if pronounciation == mywayofsayingit: print("yipee") elif pronounciation == notmywayofsayingit: print("you are objectively wrong") else: print("I have no fucking idea")

I personally prefer Skippy.
- Lots of added sugar, don't recommend
- Lots of added sugar, highly recommend.

Enjoy using the toilet paper wrong OP

Jood. The further we stray from Jod, the jreater this society will jet.

It's pronounced gif
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Eh it’s 50-50 where I’m from, even in the tech community. I’ve always use the j sound when I say it, cause I used to think it was short for giraffe

I've been fighting this war for OP's side since 1987. Come at me, I'm on Tijer Guice and shit.
- You got any ghin to go with that juice?
  
  I'm on the wajon right now but I had ghoti and shiffs for suffer last nijt.