undefined | Better HN

0 pointsnpteljes10mo ago0 comments

As much as I hate jif, thinking about it, "GPU" works the same - we say gee-pee-you and not gh-pee-you. Garbage Collection is also gee-cee. So it's only logical that jif is the correct one - even if it's not the widely accepted one.

Wrt/ communication, aside from personal preference, one can either respect the creator, or the audience. If I stand in front of 10 colleagues, 10 out of them would not understand jif, or would only get it because this issue has some history now. gif on the other hand has no friction.

Ghengis Khan for example sounds very different from its original Mongolian pronunciation. And there is a myriad others as well.

0 comments

LocalH10mo ago

The whole debate seems to be a modern phenomenon to me - from my anecdotal experience back in the day, it was never questioned by computer enthusiasts that it was pronounced "jif".

eCa10mo ago

I (as a non-native English speaker) have pronounced it with a hard g since first i saw it (mid ’90s) and many years before I learned how the creator preferred it to be pronounced.

I continue to pronounce it how I prefer it, not as a slight, but most people here would be surprised by the soft g.

If I ever meet him I’ll attempt to pronounce it soft-g.

On the other hand, even though my name exists and is reasonably common in English, I’m fairly certain neither you or the GIF creator would address me the way I pronounce my name. I would understand anyway, and wouldn’t care one bit.

npteljesOP10mo ago

I have the same experience - but with gif. Mind you, me and my circle are not native English speakers.

The debate itself is old. "Since the 90s" Wikipedia says, and keep in mind the format was is from 1987 - so I would say the debate is on from the get-go. Appropriate, too, if you think back, arguing about this kind of stuff was pretty common. Emacs vs vim, browser wars, different kinds of computers, tribalism everywhere.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pronunciation_of_GIF

dspillett10mo ago

I think “since the 90s” here is “since the late 90s”. When I first was aware of gif files (in the early 90s IIRC) I only saw the name and meaning in print so went with the hard G to match the g's pronunciation in graphics, I don't think I was aware of the original intention to pronounce it jif until somewhere in the early 2000s, at which point the use of the hard g was almost ubiquitous and the soft g idea was presented as an interesting/amusing aside.

npteljesOP10mo ago

One of Wiki's sources date it back as far as 1994, and that's a news article, so the thing must have been going on for a while.

Thinking about it, I think I understand why hard G makes sense for people. With GPU, we pronounce the the individual letters, as it's clearly an abbreviation - as no sane English word starts with "gp". With GIF though, even though it's an abbreviation, it looks a lot like a normal word, "gift", and English also has "give", another one with a hard G, so it feels familiar to say. Moreover, the US, where GIF comes from, has Jif already established as a peanut butter brand, so it makes sense to not pronounce a newly invented, differently written word the same as an already established thing. Well, at least to some it makes sense!

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse

0 comments

LocalH10mo ago

The whole debate seems to be a modern phenomenon to me - from my anecdotal experience back in the day, it was never questioned by computer enthusiasts that it was pronounced "jif".

eCa10mo ago

I (as a non-native English speaker) have pronounced it with a hard g since first i saw it (mid ’90s) and many years before I learned how the creator preferred it to be pronounced.

I continue to pronounce it how I prefer it, not as a slight, but most people here would be surprised by the soft g.

If I ever meet him I’ll attempt to pronounce it soft-g.

npteljesOP10mo ago

I have the same experience - but with gif. Mind you, me and my circle are not native English speakers.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pronunciation_of_GIF

dspillett10mo ago

npteljesOP10mo ago

One of Wiki's sources date it back as far as 1994, and that's a news article, so the thing must have been going on for a while.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse