Comments on: How do you pronounce GIF? Does it matter?

By: b00f

b00f — Thu, 11 Apr 2013 17:14:29 +0000

A lot of words get pronounced differently between different flavors of English. I think different pronunciations and spellings are 100% fine as long as a significant demographic understand and use it.

I’m sure theres someone from India who pronounces GIF as “jeef” or “geef”. Instead of alternate pronunciations, it’d be more important to focus on flat-out wrong pronunciations like “pro-nounce-iation” and “ass-ess-ory”.

http://www.dailywritingtips.com/50-incorrect-pronunciations-that-you-should-avoid/

By: peterdmare

peterdmare — Mon, 07 Jan 2013 21:36:21 +0000

That’s what happens when you don’t have rules and lots of exceptions AND no regulatory body to rule on the matter! Considering “g” in through is not pronounced, I suppose one could even say “if” ! What a waste of time to discuss this when there could be a rule!

By: Doug

Doug — Mon, 07 Jan 2013 21:06:53 +0000

Reblogged this on The Snallygaster and commented: I never realized there were so many sick people out there who pronounce "GIF" with a g like "gift". What is wrong with people?!?!

By: Flesh-eating Dragon

Flesh-eating Dragon — Thu, 03 Jan 2013 12:57:41 +0000

There isn’t much use for GIF as a format for static images anymore, given its 256 colour limit. Simple, easy-to-load animation is the only application for which it retains a niche. So it’s not surprising that animated GIFs are increasingly the default case.

(As for precipitous decline, are these mouse or dog generations? Terminology relating to computer file formats has no chance of remaining stable over a human generation…)

By: Stan

Stan — Wed, 02 Jan 2013 11:20:43 +0000

Neal: Thanks for the anecdote. The GIF = "animated GIF" sense seems to be gradually squeezing out the older one. That's just my impression, but I wouldn't be surprised if the "static GIF" sense were to decline precipitously in a generation. I've seen it suggested that we use the soft-g/hard-g pronunciations to disambiguate the two senses, but I can't see that catching on or being applied consistently by a significant number of speakers, nor do I see a pressing need for it.

By: Neal

Neal — Wed, 02 Jan 2013 04:35:55 +0000

The other interesting thing about GIF is semantic: Its meaning has now been narrowed (among some speakers, including my sons and their peers) to mean an *animated* GIF, which was unheard of when I learned the word GIF. One son was showing me an animation, and the same thing kept happening. I figured it would happen once, twice, and then something funny would happen on the third time... but then it kept on repeating. My son told me several times as I watched, "It's a GIF," and I was like, "OK, so what?" For a few weeks after that whenever he'd say someone had sent him a GIF, or he'd seen a GIF, I'd ask for clarification: "You mean an animated GIF?" He got pretty annoyed after a while.

By: Terminologia etc. » » Giffing e giffare

Terminologia etc. » » Giffing e giffare — Mon, 31 Dec 2012 13:15:20 +0000

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