Friday's Unscientific Poll: Jiff or Giff, and why?

[nanila]

I realise this question is, like, so 2008, but I'm still curious.

Poll #17753 How to pronounce .gif

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 74

View Respondents

When speaking aloud, which pronunciation do you use when referring to a file with the .gif extension?

View Answers

A "jiff"
7 (9.5%)

A "giff"
67 (90.5%)

I think I use this pronunciation primarily because of

View Answers

my geographical location
11 (14.9%)

the way I first heard it pronounced
30 (40.5%)

the way I thought it should sound in my head
59 (79.7%)

something else which I shall describe in comments
10 (13.5%)

Comments

[simont]

Because 'Jif', to me, is the name of a cleaning product with which I wouldn't want to confuse the image file format :-) An officially long-defunct name, admittedly, but even so.

(Hello. Dropping in via my network page. We seem to have several acquaintances in common, but I don't think we've spoken before. *wave*)

[caulkhead]

Yes, this exactly. And the 'new' product name still sounds wrong.

[tree_and_leaf]

Hear, hear!

[ironed_orchid]

Yep!

[azurelunatic]

Over here, there's the peanut butter, Jiff. I hate peanut butter, and wouldn't want any in my image files.

[simont]

That's even more confusing, because I love peanut butter, and now I have a horrible mental image of a brand-name collision causing me to receive a cleaning product on my toast instead!

[pbristow]

I'm old enough to remember Jif (one f) as a brand of lemon juice inside a squeezy plastic lemon, which we used to squirt all over our pancakes once a year... And the confusion to a poor young lad when Jiff (two fs) came on the market! =:o}

[azurelunatic]

It should be noticed by the spreading stage.

I cannot imagine trying to clean with peanut butter.

[fred_mouse]

This was my other reason as well!

[alexseanchai]

ACRONYM. First word is Graphic. The sound of the G does not change even though the typical rules of English applied to 'gif' as a word would suggest an initial J sound.

Also, 'gift' doesn't have the initial J sound either.

[gorgeousnerd]

I was just coming in here to comment about the acronym. That's also what informs my pronunciation.

[recessional]

Thiiiis.

[siliconshaman]

Ditto!

[pbristow]

"the typical rules of English" say "pronounce any ambiguous letters according to the origin/etymology of the word, unless centuries of history have already anglicised it beyond all recognition". Which is exactly what you're doing by pointing the origin of "GIF" as an acronym. =:o}

Also, it seems to me that short, monosyllabic words beginning with G alays have hard Gs: Gift, girl, gate, gait, goat, golf... Even some disyllabic words like "gobble" and "goblet" get in on the act. It's mainly the longer, French-derived words like "giraffe", "general", "generation" that have a soft G... and that's because of how they got brought over by our proud Norman warriors when we came and beat up you Saxon softies and taught you how to build castles properly and have a proper aristocracy and table manners from France.

[alexseanchai]

Hm, yeah, true facts.

[davidgillon]

Softie, always heard it as hard-G.

[weaverbird]

Also, Jiff is a brand of peanut-butter.

[redsixwing]

Gif, with a hard "guh." Jif is peanut butter. :)

[wohali]

Jif with a J, because: http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/05/23/battle-over-gif-pronunciation-erupts/?_r=0

[ironed_orchid]

I pronounced it with a hard G in my head, extrapolating from "gift". Then everyone I heard say it out loud said it the same way I did.

[simont]

Pronouncing it like 'gift' also enables the old joke 'beware of geeks bearing GIFs'.

Up to you whether you think that's a good thing. :-)

[serene]

Giff (though I don't have strong feelings about it) both because it seemed like it should sound that way in my head, and because there's already a word "jiff" and it's got a J, so this should sound different.

[whereisirisnow]

Asking the important questions, as always :)

[quoththeravyn]

I use 'jif', but I don't think I heard anybody else say it aloud til I'd been using it for years.

As for analogous words in English, I spent a few minutes spelunking in the GI... section of the sowpods scrabble dictionary ('xcuse me... scrabble is a trademark). Seems words borrowed from French or Italian are pronounced ji... and native (Germanic) Anglo/Saxon words are like gimp or gill (is it true that the measure of beer in Britain is pronounced 'jill'?). Not sure where the word 'gin' came from. This clearly requires more experimentation... become one with the bottle. Ah. French, via Dutch, which suggests gargling the first consonant.

Best 3rd option, like GILA, so it'd be "Heef" :-D

Is a really big picture a ginormous gif?

[pbristow]

Heh! We almost simul-posted our mutual wisdom on the matter. =:o}

[quoththeravyn]

*hands you the gin bottle*

[chickenfeet]

It never occurred to me that any pronunciation other than a hard G was an option

[katzimir]

I have a vested interest in people thinking an initial G might be pronounced as a J. Only slightly less of an issue since Buffy.