You’ve Been Saying GIF Wrong Says Founder, It is “JIF”
Ryan Martin / 11 years ago
Steve Wilhite, the one who invented the GIF format back in the late 1990s, has come out to publicly tell people that the Graphics Interchange Format is actually pronounced “JIF” not “GIF” when using its abbreviation.
Sure anyone could of found out this had they of bothered to do some research but for some reason “GIF” seems to have taken off a bit more instead of “JIF” and who really cares enough to investigate it, right?
“The Oxford English Dictionary accepts both pronunciations. They are wrong. It is a soft ‘G,’ pronounced ‘jif’. End of story,” Wilhite said in an interview.
After 26 years of saying it wrong, the internet community needs to shape up its act. I am sure this revelation will have thousands of hardcore internet users needing to change there ways.
This isn’t the first term popularity has taken off over the true pronunciation. Take for instance the GNOME project. Most people pronounce it “nome” opting for a silent G, must like a garden gnome. However, it is actually pronounced “ge-nome” and the G is supposed to be pronounced.
Have you been saying GIF wrong all your life?
