{"id":59197,"date":"2021-06-16T20:45:37","date_gmt":"2021-06-17T03:45:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.todayifoundout.com\/?p=59197"},"modified":"2021-06-16T20:47:34","modified_gmt":"2021-06-17T03:47:34","slug":"is-it-pronounced-jif-or-gif","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.todayifoundout.com\/index.php\/2021\/06\/is-it-pronounced-jif-or-gif\/","title":{"rendered":"Is it pronounced “Jif” or “Gif”?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"It is the single most profound question of the 21st Century, a debate which has dominated intellectual discourse for more than three decades. Some of the greatest minds and institutions in the world have weighed in on the issue, from top linguists and tech giants to the Oxford English Dictionary and even the President of the United States. Yet despite 30 years of fierce debate, controversy, and division, we are still no closer to a definitive answer: is it pronounced \u201cgif\u201d or \u201cjif\u2019?<\/p>\n

At its face, the answer might seem rather straightforward. After all, the acronym G-I-F stands for Graphics Interchange Format. \u201cGraphics\u201d has a hard G, so G-I-F must be pronounced \u201cghif.\u201d Case closed, right? Well, not quite. As is often the case, things aren\u2019t nearly as simple as they might appear.<\/p>\n

The Graphics Interchange Format was first introduced in June of 1987 by programmer Steve Wilhite of the online service provider Compuserve. The format\u2019s ability to support short, looping animations made it extremely popular on the early internet, and this popularity would only grow over the next two decades, with the Oxford English Dictionary declaring it their \u2018Word of the Year\u2019 in 2012.<\/p>\n

As its creator, Wilhite should be the first and final authority on the word\u2019s pronunciation. So how does he <\/em>think we should say it?<\/p>\n

\u201cJif.\u201d<\/p>\n

Yes, that\u2019s right: despite all arguments to the contrary, the creator of everyone\u2019s favourite embeddable animation format insists that it is pronounced with a soft G. According to Wilhite, the word is a deliberate reference to the popular peanut butter brand Jif; indeed, he and his colleagues were often heard quipping \u201cchoosy developers choose JIF\u201d<\/em> – a riff on the brand\u2019s famous slogan \u201cchoosy mothers choose JIF.\u201d <\/em>And he has stuck to his guns ever since. When presented with a Lifetime Achievement Award at the 2013 Webby Awards, Wilhite used his 5-word acceptance speech – presented, naturally, in the form of an animation – to declare: It\u2019s pronounced \u2018jif,\u201d not \u2018gif\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n

In a subsequent interview with the New York Times, <\/em>Wilhite reiterated his stance: \u201cThe Oxford English Dictionary accepts both pronunciations. They are wrong. It is a soft \u2018G,\u2019 pronounced \u2018jif.\u2019 End of story.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em>While the debate should have ended there, language is a strange and fickle thing, and despite Whilhite\u2019s assertions a large segment of the population continues to insist that the hard \u201cG\u201d pronunciation is, in fact, the correct one. In 2020 the programmer forum StackExchange conducted a survey of more than 64,000 developers in 200 countries, asking how they pronounce the acronym. A full 65% backed the hard G and 26% the soft G, with the remainder spelling out each individual letter – \u201cG-I-F.\u201d This seems to agree with a smaller survey of 1000 Americans conducted by eBay Deals in 2014, in which hard G beat soft G 54 to 41%. However, as The Economist <\/em>points out, people often base their pronunciation of new or unfamiliar words on that of similar existence words, and the prevalence of the hard or soft G varies widely from language to language. For example, Spanish and Finnish have almost no native soft G words, while Arabic almost exclusively uses soft Gs. Those in countries that predominantly use hard Gs make up around 45% of the world\u2019s population and around 79% of the StackExchange survey respondents. Nonetheless, even when these differences are corrected for, hard G still narrowly beats out soft G by 44 to 32%.<\/p>\n

In the wake of Wilhite\u2019s Webby Award acceptance speech, many prominent figures and organizations have publicly come out in favour of the hard-G pronunciation. In April 2013 the White House launched its Tumblr account with a graphic boldly announcing that its content would include \u201cAnimated GIFs (Hard G),\u201d while during a 2014 meeting with Tumblr CEO David Karp, U.S. President Barack Obama threw his hat into the ring, declaring: \u201c[It\u2019s pronounced GIF.] I\u2019m all on top of it. That is my official position. I\u2019ve pondered it a long time.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Many backers of the hard-G pronunciation, like web designer Dan Cederholm, focus on the pronunciation of the acronym\u2019s component words, with Cederholm tweeting in 2013: \u201cGraphics Interchange Format. Graphics. Not Jraphics. #GIF #hardg\u201d <\/em><\/p>\n

However, this argument ignores the many other instances in which the pronunciation of an acronym does not line up with that of its components. For example, while the A in \u201cATM\u201d and \u201cNATO\u201d stand for \u201cAutomatic\u201d and \u201cAtlantic,\u201d respectively, we do not pronounce them as \u201cAwe-TM\u201d or \u201cNah-tow.\u201d Many also point out that there already exist words such as \u201cjiffy\u201d in which the same sound is produced using a J, but this too ignores exceptions such as the now-archaic spelling G-A-O-L for \u201cjail.\u201d<\/p>\n

So if common sense and everyday usage can\u2019t settle the debate, then how about the rules of the English language? As noted by the good folks at the Daily Writing Tips,<\/em> words in which the G is followed by an e, i, or y – like giant,<\/em> gem, or gym \u2013 <\/em>are more often than not pronounced with a soft G, while all others are pronounced with a hard G. According to this rule, then, \u201cG-I-F\u201d should be pronounced the way Steve Wilhite originally intended: as \u201cjif.\u201d However, there are many, many exceptions to this rule, such as gift,<\/em> give, anger <\/em>or margarine. <\/em>In an attempt to clear up the matter, in 2020 linguist Michael Dow of the University of Montreal conducted a survey of all English words which included the letters \u201cG-I,\u201d grouping them according to pronunciation. The results seemed to indicate that the soft G is indeed more common as many state, with about 65% using this pronunciation rather than the hard G. However, one thing missed with this argument is that many of these soft-G words, like elegiac,<\/em> flibbertigibbet<\/em>, and excogitate, <\/em>are rarely used in everyday communication. When the actual frequency of a word\u2019s use is corrected for, the number of hard and soft-G words commonly used becomes about equal.<\/p>\n

The fundamental problem with such rules-based approaches is that unlike many other languages, English evolved rather chaotically without the guidance of a central regulatory authority like the Acad\u00e9mie Fran\u00e7aise.<\/em> Consequently, English has little in the way of consistent set of pronunciation rules, and the pronunciation of any given word depends largely on its specific etymology, common usage, or even the geographic region where it is spoken. Thus, so as far as the gif\/jif debate is concerned, the linguistic jury is still very much out.<\/p>\n

But of course, it wouldn\u2019t be America without a major corporation weighing in on the issue. On May 22, 2013, shortly after Steve Wilhite received his Webby Award, Jif brand peanut butter took to Twitter with a post reading simply: \u201cIt\u2019s pronounced Jif\u00ae .\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Seven year later, the brand teamed up with gif website GIPHY to release a limited-edition peanut-butter jar labeled \u201cGIF\u201d instead of \u201cJIF.\u201d In an interview with Business Insider, <\/em>Christine Hoffman explained: “We think now is the time to declare, once and for all, that the word of Jif should be used exclusively in reference to our delicious peanut butter, and the clever, funny animated GIFs we all use and love should be pronounced with a hard \u2018G\u2019\u201d.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Alex Chung, founder and CEO of Giphy, agreed, stating in a press release: \u201cAt Giphy, we know there\u2019s only one \u2018Jif\u2019 and it\u2019s peanut butter. If you\u2019re a soft G, please visit Jif.com. If you\u2019re a hard G, thank you, we know you\u2019re right.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em>Yet despite such efforts to force a consensus, the debate continues to rage and shows no signs of stopping anytime soon. While deferring to Steve Wilhite\u2019s originally-intended pronunciation might seem like the most logical solution, that just isn\u2019t how language works – as John Simpson, Chief Editor of the Oxford English Dictionary<\/em>, explains: \u201cThe pronunciation with a hard g is now very widespread and readily understood. A coiner effectively loses control of a word once it\u2019s out there.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em>As evidence, Simpson cites the example of \u201cquark,\u201d a type of subatomic particle. The word, derived from a passage in James Joyce\u2019s 1939 novel Finnegans Wake,<\/em> was coined in 1963 by physicist Murray Gell-Mann and originally rhymed with \u201cMark.\u201d Over the years, however, the word evolved and is today pronounced more like \u201ccork.\u201d<\/p>\n

More close to the web, the creator of the world\u2019s first Wiki, WikiWikiWeb, Howard G. Cunningham, also pronounced this word differently than most people today. As for the inspiration for the name, during a trip to Hawaii, Cunningham was informed by an airport employee that he needed to take the wiki wiki bus between the air port\u2019s terminals.\u00a0 Not understanding what the person was telling him, he inquired further and found out \u201cwiki\u201d means \u201cquick\u201d in Hawaiian; by repeating the word, it gives additional emphasis and thus means \u201cvery quick\u201d.<\/p>\n

Later, Cunningham was looking for a suitable name for his new web platform. He wanted something that was unique, as he wasn\u2019t copying any existing medium, so something simple like how email was named after \u201cmail\u201d wouldn\u2019t work.\u00a0\u00a0 He eventually settled on wanting to call it something to the effect of \u201cquick web\u201d, modeling after Microsoft\u2019s \u201cquick basic\u201d name.\u00a0 But he didn\u2019t like the sound of that, so substituted \u201cquick\u201d with the Hawaiian, \u201cwiki wiki\u201d, using the doubled form as it seemed to fit; as he stated, \u201c\u2026doublings in my application are formatting clues: double carriage return = new paragraph; double single quote = italic; double capitalized word = hyperlink.\u201d\u00a0 The program was also extremely quick, so the \u201cvery quick\u201d doubling worked in that sense as well.<\/p>\n

The shorter version of the name, calling a wiki just \u201cwiki\u201d instead of \u201cWiki Wiki\u201d came about because Cunningham\u2019s first implementation of WikiWikiWeb named the original cgi script \u201cwiki\u201d; all lower case and abbreviated in the standard Unix fashion.\u00a0 Thus, the first wiki url was http:\/\/c2.com\/cgi\/wiki.\u00a0 People latched on to this and simply called it a \u201cwiki\u201d instead of a \u201cWiki Wiki\u201d.<\/p>\n

So how was Wiki originally pronounced? \u201cwe-key\u201d, rather than the way most today pronounced it, \u201cwick-ee\u201d. However, given the popularity of the mispronunciation of the word, as with \u201cgif\u201d now being popularly pronounced differently than the creator intended, Cunningham and others have long since stopped trying to correct people on the correct way to pronounce wiki.<\/p>\n

Going back to gif vs jif, in the end, the choice is entirely a matter of personal preference, and as with all language and as many a linguist will tell you, how you use a word ultimately doesn\u2019t matter as long as you are understood, and few are going to get confused on this one. But if you\u2019d like to pronounce it the way its creator intended, go with jif, and if you\u2019d like to follow the crowd like sheep, go with gif.<\/p>\n

If you liked this article, you might also enjoy our new popular podcast, The BrainFood Show (iTunes<\/a>, Spotify<\/a>, Google Play Music<\/a>, Feed<\/a>), as well as:<\/p>\n