As COVID-19 restrictions continue, and we all start to get a little shifty in our self-containment, let’s ponder something light, entertaining, and very Word Nerdy: GIFs.
I never use My Story on Instagram, but if I’m going to gain traction on that platform (my personal favorite), I need to learn. A writer friend shared a template that I needed to fill with GIFs to post on My IG Story. I recruited help from my 18 year old daughter to assist with the project, and GIFs came up.
Daughter: (Swiping quickly and repeatedly across my phone screen). Save the template, now just search for GIFs to fill it in.
Me: Is it pronounced JIF or with a hard G, like guts?
Daughter: I don’t know! I hear it both ways.
Well, this Word Nerd had to find out.
According to an article in Time magazine dated Feb 25, 2020, the history of the pronunciation of GIF has been colorful and controversial. The GIF, or Graphics Interchange Format, is the name for a looping animations used in social media and texts. It was invented in June 1987 by Steve Wilhite at Compuserve. He said it was pronounced “JIF”, like the peanut butter, but debate started immediately.
In 2012, Oxford Dictionaries USA selected GIF as its Word of the Year and stated it could be properly pronounced with either a hard g (like graphic) or a soft g (like giant). However, in 2014, President Barack Obama declared his official position of pronouncing it with a hard g. A survey conducted in 2014 found that most Americans agreed with Obama (or perhaps he influenced them?). The use of a hard g beat the soft g, 54% to 41%.
A popular argument for the hard g pronunciation: since Graphics uses a hard g, GIF should too. However, if we held to that rule, we’d have to pronounce JPEG as JPheg, since the P stands for Photo, and we’d need to pronounce SCUBA as SCUhBA, since the U in underwater is a short u.
In the years following, various media outlets, like Mental Floss and Newsweek, got the help of linguistics professors to back up different pronunciations. At this point, there is no definitive way to pronounce GIF, but this video makes a compelling, if not somewhat hostile, argument for using a soft g.
So, at this point, I guess you can go with your preference, but I prefer “JIF”. It’s easier to say, and it’s the name the creator gave it. I respect that.
How do you pronounce GIF? What other tech words do you want to know more about?
If you like to learn new words and the origins of their meanings, visit the Wondrous Words Wednesday meme at Bermuda Onion. Each Wednesday, bloggers share new words they’ve learned.
Thanks for getting nerdy with me!
Australians pronounce some things differently from Americans, but nonetheless, I’ll put in my two cents worth.
I did French at school for six years and it was always the way in that language that a G before E or I was soft. In spite of that, I’ve always pronounced gif with a hard g.
This may be down to my working in I.T. for several decades, or because a region in Victoria, where I live, is called Gippsland with a hard G.
It’s probably more to do with the G standing for graphic.
Thanks for the “international perspective” Peter! 🙂
Julia, that video is both hostile and funny. I feel so smart now and might want to pick a fight with my linguistics-loving chldren about this topic, as it has come up around here a few times. Love it that you took this on. Thanks.
Jane
Glad you like it Jane – although I wish the video wasn’t quite so hostile. I find now, more than ever, hostility causes too much damage. He does make some good points though, doesn’t he? Enjoy the debate with your kids!
Hey! I prefer the hard “G” sound, as in “graphic”, from the base origin of the acronym, and hear it pronounced that way most often as well.
Lori Jo – 50 With Flair
Thanks for weighing in, Lori Jo!