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If it were supposed to be pronounced "jif" it would have been spelled that way, I don't give two fucks what Stephen Wilhite said about it either.
Same with Gnome wanting to be pronounced "Gah-nome", or Latex "Latech". Just spell stuff the way you want it to be pronounced, or accept that people pronounce it another way
But they did! You're the one who fucked it up by using an "x" (Latin letter x) instead of a "χ" (Greek letter chi).
(Also, you didn't capitalize or format it correctly. It's supposed to be rendered as "L^A^Τ~Ε~Χ", and yes, those last three letters are
Τ Ε ΧGreek capital tau, epsilon, chi.)🤓
Lol, the only way to be more obtuse would be to say "our project name has no approved transliteration or Unicode string... Render this svg inline or don't talk about us."
Reminds me of
, as well as #11 in this list.
(I'd love to scale that image to the same size as the text, but I don't know if Lemmy's markdown supports it.)
Just letting you know I appreciate that you used the actual "χ" instead of just "X" when referring to the letter Chi.
New hill: All brand names must be composed entirely of pronounceable characters from languages in actual use today
Um, I hate to break it to you, but...
we all know it's actually pronounced "yiff"
uwu
Ah, you mean that old Linux sound server. Very deep reference.
Agreed. I think since the “G” stands for “graphics” it should be pronounced like the G in graphics.
But why? We don't pronounce any other acronyms like that, so why treat GIF different? The U in SCUBA isn't pronounced like it is in Underwater. The first A in CAPTCHA isn't pronounced the same as in Automated and the CH isn't split up to be pronounced like Computer and Human. The second A in NASA isn't pronounced like in Administration and the I in PIN doesn't get pronounced like Identification.
We read acronyms as their own words, not as a collection of the first sounds of each constituent word.
I always respond that in that case, "jpeg" should be pronounced "jfeg".
My argument for this is that gift is pronounced with a hard g, why would removing the t change anything. I think SW was trolling. But you want to know what’s totally bonkers? My coworker pronounced Git with a soft g. WTF my dude?
Jithub makes me think of a place you go to get an STD.
Gi (martial arts uniform) and gin
Gel and geld
Also .JIF is already a file format and as far as I know, it's pronounced, "jif" just like it looks. So if "gif" and "jif" are supposed to be pronounced the same way, then why do we even have the letter J? Fuck the letter C too while we're at it, get a unique sound, you bastard letter.
https://fileinfo.com/extension/jiff
Oh wow that's actually a really good point!
Now prepare for it to be dismissed! People are too dug in at this point, there's no going back. The trenches have been dug.
There are so many other acronyms where you don't pronounce every letter the same as their constituent words, I don't understand why GIF is the one people have a problem with accepting. SCUBA, NASA, CAPTCHA, OWCA, etc.
It IS spelled that way
The inventor of the GIF pronounces it with a soft G
Geoffrey
Giraffe
Gymnasium
There are plenty of examples of that pronunciation
I have the opposite view, but I thought it would be too incendiary a topic to bring up...
The thing is, that argument doesn't really hold up, because g in English has two major pronunciations.
What a coincidence! This is my favorite hill to troll people on!
It's absolutely meaningless, it just doesn't matter, and people are sooo opinionated about it!
Jod Himself could descend from heaven, and decree “actually it’s pronounced jif…” And I’d still continue pronouncing it gif.
If it were meant to be pronounced 'giff' as in 'goober', it would have been spelled that way. You decide to turn an initialism into an acronym, you get what you get.
Fair enough, LOL, though the second half of my comment still holds. I also need to buy some gin for my giraffe.
I'd like to see that. Post it in jraphics interchange format.
I was thinking a Joint Fotographic Experts Group format.
If you take video, post it as an MPEJ.
I hope it's a giraffe
Self Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus or Self Contained Oonderwater Breathing Apparatus (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scuba_diving)
That's the problem with this debate, for every argument, the counter argument is just the same thing but a different example! The only argument that remains is "the creator said so" vs "so what he's lame"
It always WAS an acronym. That's the entire point of the argument. "G"raphics "I"nterchange "F"ormat.
Nobody turned it into an acryonym, it just IS an acronym. That's not an opinion, it's a fact. The reason it's pronounced with a hard G is because Graphics is a hard G.
And Photographic is pronounced as /f/, yet we don't insist on JPhEG or JFEG. Language is weird, and people often decline to create an acronym from a set of initials that could theoretically be one ("CIA"), or make an acronym where it may not initially seem natural ("HMMWV").
Choosy nerds choose gif, soft G. :-)
It's my favourite battle. And when the war against AI comes, it'll be because the AI will make a final decision and then decide the other side needs to be ultimately defeated.
but g followed by i or e very regularly makes a soft g in English (and always makes a soft g in Italian, which is irrelevant I guess but I speak both). you may as well purposely mispronounce giraffe, gelatin, germ, Giorgio, giant, gentle, etc while you're at it since it they don't start with a j.
by english rules it very often is a soft g, but could be hard as well, but the creator has clarified multiple times it is meant to be soft, so why are people fighting it?
gift
pan / pang
hat / hate
clam / claim
one letter can and often does completely change pronunciation. i'd give you a good ol' fashion makin fun of, but i actually think you could've gotten there if you would've thought about for a few more seconds. you seem pretty smart. shame you clicked reply too soon.
You're on the wrong side of history, get over it.
in terms of how people refer to it these days, you may be correct that slightly more are using the hard g. what drives me nuts about the argument though is that the 'hard g' crowd does not have a good argument for it. the "g stands for graphics so it should be a hard g" crowd are immediately proven wrong that that's not how any acronyms work. the "gift" crowd are immediately proven wrong as i just did above.
just be honest with yourselves. the only argument you have is "we just like it better". if you were honest then i wouldn't be able to argue against it.