Gif's inventor says ignore dictionaries and say 'Jif'

[Jazzy]

The creator of the Gif graphics format has said that his invention should be pronounced so it starts with a "j" rather than with a hard "g".

Steve Wilhite told the New York Times that he was "annoyed" there was still a debate over how to say the acronym.

He added that the Oxford English Dictionary was wrong to say it could be pronounced both ways.

The OED told the BBC that it was beyond the software engineer's control to determine how the word should be said.

The difference of opinion coincided with Mr Wilhite being awarded a lifetime achievement prize at The Webby Awards. To mark the moment, screens at the ceremony displayed a message he had written saying: "It's pronounced 'Jif'".

The Gif Pronunciation Page has long catalogued evidence that Gif sounds like Jif.

The site suggests the reason for this was to make it sound like a popular brand of American peanut butter - "one of the principal three programmer foods (the other two being Pepsi and nacho cheese Doritos)".

That reference would be lost on UK users, who are more likely to associate Jif with lemon juice or an abandoned brand of sink cleaner.

The Oxford English Dictionary's chief editor John Simpson made it clear that whatever the word's roots, the fact many people used the hard "g" meant that option was acceptable.

"The pronunciation with a hard 'g' is now very widespread and readily understood," he said.

"A coiner effectively loses control of a word once it's out there; for instance, the coiner of quark in the physics sense had intended it to rhyme with cork, but general usage has resulted in it rhyming with mark.

"Whichever pronunciation you use for Gif, it should of course be the same for both the noun and the verb."

The American Heritage Dictionary also states the acronym can be said both ways.

The White House has also weighed in on the debate when it made it clear, last month, that President Obama preferred to use the "hard g".

Full article

Do you say it with a "hard g" or do you say Jif?

 

[Evil Eye]

Neither. I use a χ.
"Gif" being more of an actual word for me and all.