@@Gl-my8fw that's just inaccurate. Mr potato head still exists. The toyline is just becoming the "potatohead" line. And dr. Suess' estate decided to stop publishing four of his many, many books. As they have every right to do, and as has been debated for like two decades. Calm down. Lol
@@StormCrownSrtheyre different words. We arent talking about the pronunciation of G; "graphic" is the word in question. Talk to an adult if youre having difficulties.
"G" for "G"raphic. Always has been always will be, since the days of the 286 and 386 chips, everyone has pronounced it with a "G", and there was never an argument about it. The guy is just trolling people at this point, and I don't care what he thinks 20 years later. If he really intended to pronounce it "jif", he'd make the "J" work in the acronym somehow, like the JPEG people did.
Tbh, I've always heard it pronounced gif in person and thats how I've always pronounced it too. When I first saw it spelled out "gif" I just saw gift without the t so I use a hard g like in gift.
this is just like when i say "goodbye" it sounds like i am saying "f*ck off". people are saying i am pronouncing goodbye wrong, but i just tell them goodbye and walk away.
@@pattongilbert The human race is slowly doing just that. Language is still evolving. And people who say "jif" are one of the biggest obstacles to that evolution.
@@JustSomeKittenwithaGun and as pointed out by the evidence in the video (which you did watch before commenting, right?) that doesn't really mean anything.
Except this is a tangible product that was actual intellectual property of CompuServe which was patented. I'd say the creator (and owner) should decide. Since CompuServe doesn't exist anymore, I'll go with the guy who created it.
@@thomasplummer8103 He didn't! I *promise* you, as someone who is ancient enough to have had Internet access since at least the fall of 1986 (and possibly it was '85), in the early 90's when this acronym was becoming common (at least among my colleagues) *none* of us pronounced it with a hard "G". None. We all knew the "Choosy programmers choose GIF" slogan.
I'm a "hard G" proponent, but all this indicates is that English has 2 letters that make a soft G sound and only one that makes a hard G, so when trying to differentiate, it makes sense to use the other letter that only makes a soft G sound, but you're stuck with the only letter that makes a hard G sound. But this just brings me to my larger beef. Let's get rid of duplicate letter sounds. All Gs should be hard G, we already have J if we need that sound. We can also get rid of the letter C entirely, or make it always make the CH sound. It's just a redundant letter otherwise. And don't think I'm letting Y off the hook. You barely hang on by your use in the beginning of words, but I could do just as well, so consider yourself on probation.
@@QBCPerdition you think your y is bad? In my language, there is no difference between i and y. Zero, null, nada. At least it _can_ make a different sound in english.
I can't count the number of internet arguments I've started with this sentence: It's pronounced Gif, not Gif. People will argue with you without even knowing which one you support. lol
I don't care what the world agrees with, the fact is that language has the direct example of "gift" as thomas brought up. That is the single example that you need in english to know how to pronounce it. People who want to convince themselves they say it right can brought up all sorts of other words that don't directly compare, but they can't change the fact that language proves our pronunciation right. When you have to say "well the person who made it says it this way" you already lost the game. Btw you just lost the game.
If the title had spelled "Gif" the same way instead of spelling out the pronunciations, many people would have read the first Gif based on their own pronunciations and read the following Gif in the other pronunciation. Data or data? Mayonnaise or mayonnaise? Tomato or tomato? Honestly though, who actually says potato as potato.
The guy named it after his favorite p-bub and they're like "Don't." Got dang, that's cold. But it makes a lot of sense. Jif is a registered trademark, and trademark enforcement is typically twofold on whether a person or company can claim ownership - frequency of usage, and commonality in language. The first is straightforward: a word has to be used in order for the trademark to be enforceable. Basically, if someone wants to own, say, FlatuLater for a digestive product, they actually have to have a product with that name on record for a certain percentage of the term. If they register it and never use it, they won't be able to renew it later. the second is trickier. Common words, including misspellings of common words, are MUCH harder to either apply for or renew. Pronouncing Graphics Interchange Format as "jif" would mean that Jif peanut butter would have a weaker claim on their trademark. Xerox, Kleenex, and Band-aid are all now used as common by-words for the products they sell, and a single even brief lapse in their trademark will render them unable to renew them - like what has already happened with dumpster, aspirin, and hot tub before them. In fact, Aspirin is still enforced in Germany among other countries because they never allowed to lapse there. So basically, Jif doesn't want the picture format used for animated memes to make their product less distinct.
Thank you Simon for agreeing that it should be pronounced "gif" and not "gif". At the start of the video I was worried that you would be a sheep and prefer "gif", but I am glad that you are not one.
I started using the Internet in 1992 and working for an ISP in '96 (in Florida) and it wasn't until we were well into the 2000s that I even heard that the creator had a different pronunciation than the one I had used for 15+ years. It is, and will always be gif, not jif.
@@wlovins0 Maybe it's a Europe/US thing then, because in the UK everyone I ever worked with used the soft g. (As did most people I interacted with online for a long time honestly. From where I'm sat, it feels a lot like the hard g became more common once the number of people online started exploding in the early 2000s.)
@@d_dave7200 it is funny you mention you're up as I have lived in the UK for the last decade and I'm fairly certain most people use a hard G so I guess it really did take over before I was able to encounter it in any other form. What do I know... I have only recently accepted calling it a rooter instead of a router.
Most language isn't so arbitrary. English has like 5 major linguistic bases, though, and takes from every other language that incorporates its culture into it, so... yeah, English isn't the best example, and you'll never get a straight answer. One of the only languages that often has more exceptions to the rule than actual times the rule works, as with "I before E except after C."
@@micahphilson I didn’t mean that languages don’t have rules I just meant the rules they do have are arbitrary. What I meant to say was, language rules are determined by the way people speak and use the language in conversation. There not meant as a way to determine whether people are speaking correctly. The way someone speaks is the way they speak. As long as they can be understood, then there speaking correctly.
I don't care how one chooses to pronounce it, but the argument that it should be with a G sound (like Gift) because the G stands for Graphics is a double-plus stupid argument. There is no rule that the letters in acronyms must be pronounced exactly as they are used in the words they represent ... otherwise "NASA" would be pronounced Nessa (like nessie, the Lach Ness Monster) or LASER would be pronounced "Lassier" and CPATCHA would be pronounced "Cop-ta-kaw-ha".
And then there's the singer Sade, who pronounces her name as "Sharday". And there's the American football quarterback Bret Favre, whose last name is pronounced as "Farve".
English has English problems. If many Americans (or English speakers) pronounce her name as something that is similar to the word "shade", it is not, like, "universal" problem. My favourite stab at native English speakers, mostly Americans, is that whatever you think of Trump, you know how to pronounce Ivanka's name. But take two letters off, suddenly the name Ivan is an Apple transport service - iVan. Even when reading the name Ivan Ivanovich, you don't even consider it weird that you pronounce the first Ivan differently than the second. If I remember Russian names correctly, Ivanovich means "Ivan's son", so I don't know why anyone would ever think the name suddenly changes its pronunciation. Sade may be an English singer, but she was born in Nigeria, and Sade is a part of her real name, so I think she knows how to pronounce it. But, you can never know when you're too tough for English speakers. Evángelos Odysséas Papathanassíou would probably be too hard for native English speakers, so he went by Vangelis to make it simpler for people, and not only native English speakers. But, apparently Americans still pronounce him wrong. They seem to think it's said the same way they say "angel". Also, having a phonetic language, I may not now German, but at least I can pronounce "shaufensterpuppen", not go "shoo... sheio... let's just make fun of Germans for having weird long words". PS. As for the Russian names, my middle name might have been Petrovich in some Soviet paperwork, because my father's name was also Peter.
Statler and Waldorf had a good gag similar to this on The Muppet Show. In reference to the word "tomato", Waldorf says to Statler, "So I was wondering, is it pronounced 'tomayto' or 'tomarto'?" And Statler confuses Waldorf by replying, "Is what pronounced 'tomayto' or 'tomarto'?" Left Waldorf speechless! He didn't know what to give as an answer!!
there actually is a .jif format, but I think it's way more obscure. But still, pronouncing "gif" as "jif" only adds to the confusion, Are you talking about .gif or .jif? Just say gif lmao
I am a graphic artist and have long scratched my head at everyone that is arguing about this. While the creator of the of the Graphics Interchange Format may claim the pronunciation "GIF" as "JIF", there is already a file format named ".JIF". While many people may not know or use that file format that often, they may have also heard of the format name another way JPEG. So while there can be the use of GIF; /dʒɪf/ JIF or /ɡɪf/ GHIF in common language, in the field of graphic design it's best to use the correct format or be looked at rather funny. Not that many designers or programs use the .jif format exclusively any longer but for the few of us that still remember it we wonder what all the confusion is about. I posted this exact same thing on a Tom Scott video a few months back. Nothing has changed so I'll put it here for others to see and enjoy/rant at. ♥
While we're at it, British people pronounce aluminum incorrectly. It isn't spelled aluminium after all. And since mathematics isn't plural, the short version is math, not maths.
I concur. 🧐 Whenever I see “maths” alarm bells go off. What’s the point of shortening a word and then appending on the last letter? To make a singular plural because..? It’s like how references to companies sometimes goes like this: “RUclips are removing videos that violate their updated TOS which now bans English English and allows only the proper and correct ‘Merican English.” (don’t take that example too seriously). I like the Numberphile channel but sometimes it drives my crazy.
Opinion: Use what the creator or person who coined it intended. It pays homage to the origin and serves as a conversation starter with a little trivia. Especially if most say (or insist on saying) it differently.
Oh yeah? Well, the S in laser stands for stimulated... but we don't pronounce it "lay-sir" do we? The U in scuba stands for underwater.... but we don't pronounce it "scuh-ba" do we?
@@ThEjOkErIsWiLd00 Indeed, although, to be fair, those slow the pronunciation of those words, and language often evolves with preference for faster pronunciations. In the case of GIF, speed doesn't really differ between the two ways to pronounce it, since the only difference between them is right at the start.
The strongest argument in favour of a hard G is his own written assertion of "jif not gif". It literally is gif, if you wanted to call it jif you should have named it jif.
I was a Compuserve user (sometimes called CI$) when they introduced the .gif. I never heard of it referred to in any way other than “jif” until many years later. I still call it “jif” today. BTW how is it today some refer to this “/“ as backslash when it’s a forward slash or just slash. In internet usage it’s always been “/“. The only time I’ve ever seen the backslash “\” is in DOS command line use to indicate a directory, as in C:\FOLDER.
"G" transitioned from "K" when the Indo-Europeans migrated to the MIddle-East and Europe. And that then went to Britain with the Anglo-Saxons. After Billy the Conq came over, the soft g sound came over with the French version. So we use soft "G" on words that came from Norman French and hard "G" on older words. (eg "guest" from Anglo-Saxons, versus "page" which came from Latin and went into English by way of Norman conquest). The Franco-Latin language changed "Y" to a "J" sound and that ended up in English and wasn't made an actual letter until the 19th century. So the bottom line is since graphicos came from old Greek via 19th century and not from Billy the Conq via France, it is GIF with a hard sound.
Sry to dissapoint you, but even if you bring up all arguments about history, etymology and further derivations. GIF will always be a Image Format that was created by Stephen Earl Wilhite. And as is the nature of modern products, all product names are exceptions, regardless of language (e.g. huawei, nike, ...). The manufacturer decides on the naming. If someone pronounces the product incorrectly even though they have been taught the correct pronunciation, they are simply naïve. This is a fact and not even remotely debatable.
@@alexis.d.santos that's absolutely incorrect in our culture. Once something is put out to the public, the creator's intention pales in comparison to the public usage. In language everything, including product names (which this isn't really, since it's not a product- rather than a computing function), are subject to popular usage. Sorry to disappoint you.
@@manaash4316 the inventor died this year and that was one of his wishes that he has shared with the public. I'm aware that most people go through life selfishly and don't value the creators of something. Go through life calmly without respecting the wishes of others and just do your thing. This naivety will definitely get you further. But yes, everyone should mind his own business ,right? If you feel better about doing everything the way you see fit, then do it. I support you and I don't hate you for it.
@@alexis.d.santos we can value the creator without completely agreeing with him, nor colloquially calling the format by his linguisticaply-incorrect preference.
If we let inventors have the final word on their inventions, we'd all be answering the telephone with "Ahoy hoy!". Besides the whole "graphics starts with a hard 'g'", there's another consideration- clarity. You see, when GIFs and JPG were new, JPG were originally "JIF" (for JPEG Interchange Format). Today, "JFIF" is still around but in the early "8.3" days, it was JIF before (nonsensically) settling on "JPG" even though JPEG is an organization and there's no mention of format in that acronym. To avoid any confusion when talking to graphics people, you HAD to say "JIF" and "GIF" differently.
I prefer the Hard G for GIF because it contrasts with the J in JPEG. These were the first two major image formats used on the web. So maybe that's why the Hard G pronunciation is more common.
A careful listening to Back To The Future had me reconsider my assumption that it was all hard g’s for giga- prefix. And come realize that the soft g of GIF follows the same convention. Only it’s a bit odd to have the two different g’s in giga- But since kilo- means 1000 and in computer realms 1024, I am still fine with mispronouncing “gigs” of RAM etc when used in that narrow context. I can never remember what the new units are that are supposed to infer 1024 instead of 1000. I don’t lose sleep over it.
@@StormCrownSr that's not how trademarks work, Jif only owns the trademark for peanut butter, if someone makes a restaurant called "Jif" they could not be sued because Jif does not own trademarks for restaurants, same for image formats such as .gif.
I read an article in 1990 that did an interview with Wilhite and it talked about the pronunciation and he said it was JIF. Even before I read that I pronounced it JIF and still do.
I honestly never thought about it until a few years ago when everyone else started choosing sides. I might have used both interchangeably before without noticing.
@@rtishere1910 Proves my point. Looks like gosh or got with a hard 'g'. Just like the way you're supposed to pronounce gif the same way you would gift. Jif is peanut butter.
Go to bit.ly/today-i-found-out and use code tifo to get 50% off a 6-month plan, plus 1 additional month free.
Btw: old English "gif" is pronounced "Yiff".
Jeff
@@erinfinn2273 "My name is Yiff!"
or you could just stop eating & it wont cost you a cent.
Hard G, FFS... There is a .jiff filetype!
Before I even watch, i’m just amazed that this could be stretched out over 12 mins.
especially considering the guy that came up with gif's said in 2013 that it was pronounced jiff.
What's the opposite of wiki?
@R DOTTIN I see what you did there.
2 minutes were an ad.
@R DOTTIN "Allegedly"
In many languages J is pronounced like the English consonant Y, so I'm pronouncing it yif just to spite him.
that's too furry for everyone else though
that's why I use ʒaif
K but who asked
‘J’ in Spanish is pronounced with an ‘H’ sound.
@@inkdreams5113 ¿El Hif?
God himself could descend from the heavens with all of his angels and tell me it's pronounced "jif" and I would say, "okay, sure, thanks, Jod."
you mean Jod himself?
Lmao
@@RachaelSA I said what I said!
Praise Gesus!
Giraffe
GIF
Debates like this, are why I love the internet. So silly, yet everybody acts like it's a major global issue.
Seems like tons of national issues are about b.s made up words and terms lately.... they are against mr potato head and dr seuss now...
@@Gl-my8fw
They need to leave Me potato head alone..😕
He's done nothing.......
@@TATTIEPICKER apparently in their warped mind nothing with mr. Should be allowed. It is pathetic.
Debates like this show how silly people are. Yes, it's entertaining.
@@Gl-my8fw that's just inaccurate. Mr potato head still exists. The toyline is just becoming the "potatohead" line.
And dr. Suess' estate decided to stop publishing four of his many, many books. As they have every right to do, and as has been debated for like two decades.
Calm down. Lol
The fact that he used “gif” and “jif” in the title to denote the different pronunciations should tell you all you need to know.
My thoughts exactly!
No. It stands for graphic. No one says jraphic
@@deacanflynn5787 I wonder how you pronounce agent, gel, genetics.
@@StormCrownSr I wonder how you pronounce grapes grass green and get a grip
@@StormCrownSrtheyre different words. We arent talking about the pronunciation of G; "graphic" is the word in question. Talk to an adult if youre having difficulties.
I honestly will never care about the 'official' way. I'll always still pronounce it with the G sound.
When you stop caring is when they win.
And that's how we get so many people saying things like nuculer and jewlery and realitor.
@@fiveoctaves give it a generation or 2 and u, ur, and cus will be in the dictionary :P
@@fiveoctaves
No one is adding extra syllables or rearranging the letters in "gif". Your comparison doesn't work. Try another argument.
"G" for "G"raphic. Always has been always will be, since the days of the 286 and 386 chips, everyone has pronounced it with a "G", and there was never an argument about it. The guy is just trolling people at this point, and I don't care what he thinks 20 years later. If he really intended to pronounce it "jif", he'd make the "J" work in the acronym somehow, like the JPEG people did.
Tbh, I've always heard it pronounced gif in person and thats how I've always pronounced it too. When I first saw it spelled out "gif" I just saw gift without the t so I use a hard g like in gift.
No joke, I once thought my buddy was talking about peanut butter for 3 minutes. That level of confusion sold me on GIF.
"To the bane of my god damn life, Americans."
I laughed a little too hard at that.
Simon: pronounces gif with a hard G throughout video
Simon: calls us all sheep for pronouncing gif with a hard G
He pronounced it both ways (multiple times), each time pronouncing how who he's referring to at the time chooses to pronounce it.
I pronounce it "Zhaif" ,that way I can piss everyone off.
Seriously, I thought that "zhaif" was decided on back in 2014. Either that or "fish."
ruclips.net/video/bmqy-Sp0txY/видео.html
this is just like when i say "goodbye" it sounds like i am saying "f*ck off". people are saying i am pronouncing goodbye wrong, but i just tell them goodbye and walk away.
🖕🏼 (translated as: see you tomorrow)
The fact that people have to change the spelling to indicate when they mean “jif” I think proves that the hard G is the correct way.
This issue with that is that, if that was true, we’d spell all words phonetically when we type. :/
@@pattongilbert The human race is slowly doing just that. Language is still evolving. And people who say "jif" are one of the biggest obstacles to that evolution.
@@MickeyD2012 no, you just can't accept that you read it incorrectly the first time.
@@StormCrownSr "Correctly". Fixed that for you :)
@@Crystan You see? Denial!
You'll take away my hard-G "gif" from my cold dead hands.
Would you like folks mispronouncing your name? Cause your name and this format are both pronouns and are pronounced how the owner tells you to.
@@ABArsenal this sum bullshit. The guy doesn't own the language
I have invented the "glarble". Btw it is prounounced "floombutt".
Giraffe
GIF
@@ColorlessFuture77 Gift
GIF
we can play this all day
@@ColorlessFuture77 G in GIF stands for graphics, not giraffe.
@@JustSomeKittenwithaGun and as pointed out by the evidence in the video (which you did watch before commenting, right?) that doesn't really mean anything.
Jif is in my kitchen, it's a scrubbing cleaner
Language is a living thing. It will decide whatever the people chose, not what the creator says.
and if the creator wanted it pronounced a certain way, he should not have waited decades to weigh in.
@@thomasplummer8103 haha anthropology could argue if it’s a living thing or not in a way lol (no hate, just joking)
Except this is a tangible product that was actual intellectual property of CompuServe which was patented. I'd say the creator (and owner) should decide. Since CompuServe doesn't exist anymore, I'll go with the guy who created it.
Yes. Words pronounced nuculer, realitor, and jewlery are here to stay. I can't wait for eh-pih-tome to be the norm.
@@thomasplummer8103 He didn't! I *promise* you, as someone who is ancient enough to have had Internet access since at least the fall of 1986 (and possibly it was '85), in the early 90's when this acronym was becoming common (at least among my colleagues) *none* of us pronounced it with a hard "G". None. We all knew the "Choosy programmers choose GIF" slogan.
Them: 'English is a living language,'
Me: 'NO! It's a dying language! Every time you mispronounce a word, it dies a little!'
Replace living with evolving
@@joshuaewalker But then my joke doesn't work anymore. You're killing my jokes!!
Stabby stabby...
Descriptivists: 'when enough people use language in an incorrect way long enough, that becomes correct."
W.D. Callahan: "Every time you mispronounce a word, it dies a little!"
Me: Ponders the Great Vowel Drift starting in the late 14th century.
the fact that you had to type jif on the screen says it all
You don't pronounce it as gif in the first place. You pronounce it as ghif.
It is up to the creator really. Stupid for anyone to argue with that
@@StormCrownSr
You spelled it differently but I read both of those words exactly the same. They're homophones. Just like there, their, and they're.
I'm a "hard G" proponent, but all this indicates is that English has 2 letters that make a soft G sound and only one that makes a hard G, so when trying to differentiate, it makes sense to use the other letter that only makes a soft G sound, but you're stuck with the only letter that makes a hard G sound.
But this just brings me to my larger beef. Let's get rid of duplicate letter sounds. All Gs should be hard G, we already have J if we need that sound. We can also get rid of the letter C entirely, or make it always make the CH sound. It's just a redundant letter otherwise. And don't think I'm letting Y off the hook. You barely hang on by your use in the beginning of words, but I could do just as well, so consider yourself on probation.
@@QBCPerdition you think your y is bad? In my language, there is no difference between i and y.
Zero, null, nada. At least it _can_ make a different sound in english.
1:45 until the actual content starts?
I legit thought I'd clicked on the wrong video🤔
If you don't like that then you might not like Business Blaze..
thanks bro, i pay for RUclips premium and these creator adds piss me the fuck off.
I love Sp0ns0rBlock!
Watch Business Blaze. The introduction is usually about 3-5 minutes. 😉That isn’t a complaint. I love the Blaze!
Who else is here to watch the firestorm in the comments?
I haven't even watched the video yet :)
MichaelJacksonEatingPopcornMeme.gif
Too bad I can't sort by controversial.
I'm here to add fuel to the fire 🤣
And oh boy, napalm white phosphorus firestorm it is 🤣
"I always used 'gif' with the hard g" Abraham Lincoln
Bc everyone always believes "historical quotes"
If it was a regular english word like "gift, gill, give" it would ge hard g, so I say hard.
Howssit sound:
GIF: Graphics Interface Format
JIF: Giraffics Interface Format
We don't want miracles, case closed.
Then I hope you're also pronuncing scuba as "scuh-ba" and laser as "lasser"
You must pronounce "Joint Photographic Experts Group" as JFEG then instead of JPEG
No.
JIF: peanut butter
I can't count the number of internet arguments I've started with this sentence:
It's pronounced Gif, not Gif.
People will argue with you without even knowing which one you support. lol
I enjoy the emotion you brought to this one.
Anyone saying Jif won't be getting a jift from me next Christmas.
The makers say jif but I say gif. And I believe the world agrees currently? G raphic not J raffic
it do be gif doe
@@stark2491 And Gift is pronounced with a hard G. SO there is no reason removing a D at the end would change the pronunciation of the beginning.
What you mean like ginger? Giraffe? Gerald? Gemini?
@@Spideryote If by removing or adding a single letter at the end of any of those words you could change the pronunciation, you might have a point.
I don't care what the world agrees with, the fact is that language has the direct example of "gift" as thomas brought up. That is the single example that you need in english to know how to pronounce it. People who want to convince themselves they say it right can brought up all sorts of other words that don't directly compare, but they can't change the fact that language proves our pronunciation right.
When you have to say "well the person who made it says it this way" you already lost the game.
Btw you just lost the game.
GIF -> Graphics Interchange Format
JIF -> JPEG Interchange Format
Look it up.
The way it must be since there became two
If the title had spelled "Gif" the same way instead of spelling out the pronunciations, many people would have read the first Gif based on their own pronunciations and read the following Gif in the other pronunciation.
Data or data?
Mayonnaise or mayonnaise?
Tomato or tomato?
Honestly though, who actually says potato as potato.
lol
Tomato / tomahto.
I’m confused. There is only one way to pronounce mayonnaise right?
@@ToWhom Maybe may-nay-z and may-o-nay-z?
@@stargazernight6645 The more common pronunciations I hear are "may-o-nays" and "man-nays".
You got peanut butter in my graphics interchange format.
Is it bane of your “goddamn life” or your joddamn life”? 😂
You woke up today and chose to start a fight.
This video is truly an animated gift to the Internets.
You mean jift.
You mean Interwebs.
I'm surprised he didn't bring up the drink gin.
🙂
Gif is pronounced Gif.
…
If the first and last words of that sentences sound different in your mind, you have problems.
Agreed. Soft G for both since there is only one GIF.
@@fiveoctaves no
So gin is pronounced gin?
How do you pronounce giraffe? rofl
@@Cifer77 how do you pronounce gimp
@@Cifer77 Pronounce graphics, the first word in GIF.
In short, damned if you do, damned if you don't. Someone is always gonna be pissed.
The guy named it after his favorite p-bub and they're like "Don't." Got dang, that's cold. But it makes a lot of sense.
Jif is a registered trademark, and trademark enforcement is typically twofold on whether a person or company can claim ownership - frequency of usage, and commonality in language.
The first is straightforward: a word has to be used in order for the trademark to be enforceable. Basically, if someone wants to own, say, FlatuLater for a digestive product, they actually have to have a product with that name on record for a certain percentage of the term. If they register it and never use it, they won't be able to renew it later.
the second is trickier. Common words, including misspellings of common words, are MUCH harder to either apply for or renew. Pronouncing Graphics Interchange Format as "jif" would mean that Jif peanut butter would have a weaker claim on their trademark. Xerox, Kleenex, and Band-aid are all now used as common by-words for the products they sell, and a single even brief lapse in their trademark will render them unable to renew them - like what has already happened with dumpster, aspirin, and hot tub before them. In fact, Aspirin is still enforced in Germany among other countries because they never allowed to lapse there.
So basically, Jif doesn't want the picture format used for animated memes to make their product less distinct.
To be fair, Giphy was agreeing with them; but isn't their own name a play on the word "jiffy"?
Thank you Simon for agreeing that it should be pronounced "gif" and not "gif". At the start of the video I was worried that you would be a sheep and prefer "gif", but I am glad that you are not one.
It's pronounced Heeph. The g makes an "h" sound. The I makes an "ee" sound. The f makes a "ph" sound.
Here's a fun question - how does Mongolia teach the Mongol Empire in schools?
In mongolian I suppose.
Damnit lol.
You mean Monjolia, right?
if it is not pronounced " gif " then why is there another photo format called " Jiff " ? ?
does anyone use that one?
I thought it was JFIF, or is there also JIFF?
Gif if you don’t you should rethink your life
As a 90s developer, when most everyone in the industry back then seemed to pronounce it JIF, you'll pry that pronunciation from my cold dead hands.
Which should be soon enough considering you were a 90's developer.
@@joshuaewalker goteem.
I started using the Internet in 1992 and working for an ISP in '96 (in Florida) and it wasn't until we were well into the 2000s that I even heard that the creator had a different pronunciation than the one I had used for 15+ years. It is, and will always be gif, not jif.
@@wlovins0 Maybe it's a Europe/US thing then, because in the UK everyone I ever worked with used the soft g.
(As did most people I interacted with online for a long time honestly. From where I'm sat, it feels a lot like the hard g became more common once the number of people online started exploding in the early 2000s.)
@@d_dave7200 it is funny you mention you're up as I have lived in the UK for the last decade and I'm fairly certain most people use a hard G so I guess it really did take over before I was able to encounter it in any other form. What do I know... I have only recently accepted calling it a rooter instead of a router.
Well, it ain’t goddamn peanut butter.
Conclusion: 1 language is completely arbitrary 2 the “right” way to pronounce things is the way people pronounce things.
Most language isn't so arbitrary. English has like 5 major linguistic bases, though, and takes from every other language that incorporates its culture into it, so... yeah, English isn't the best example, and you'll never get a straight answer.
One of the only languages that often has more exceptions to the rule than actual times the rule works, as with "I before E except after C."
@@micahphilson I didn’t mean that languages don’t have rules I just meant the rules they do have are arbitrary. What I meant to say was, language rules are determined by the way people speak and use the language in conversation. There not meant as a way to determine whether people are speaking correctly. The way someone speaks is the way they speak. As long as they can be understood, then there speaking correctly.
I don't care how one chooses to pronounce it, but the argument that it should be with a G sound (like Gift) because the G stands for Graphics is a double-plus stupid argument. There is no rule that the letters in acronyms must be pronounced exactly as they are used in the words they represent ... otherwise "NASA" would be pronounced Nessa (like nessie, the Lach Ness Monster) or LASER would be pronounced "Lassier" and CPATCHA would be pronounced "Cop-ta-kaw-ha".
It’s pronounced yif. Do not argue, just accept it.
The picture of the dog tells me you must be correct.
the real truth
As in gyro! Mmm, I could go for a couple gyros right now.
That’s fur real
Yod has painted the hell yraphics for you.
We need a GIF of Simon saying "To the bane of my goddam life!"
God himself could tell me its pronounced "jif" and i would still pronounce it "gif" while maintaining my conviction that it is the correct way.
You're objectively wrong.
@@meatrace lol believing there's objectively correct language
And then there's the singer Sade, who pronounces her name as "Sharday". And there's the American football quarterback Bret Favre, whose last name is pronounced as "Farve".
English has English problems. If many Americans (or English speakers) pronounce her name as something that is similar to the word "shade", it is not, like, "universal" problem. My favourite stab at native English speakers, mostly Americans, is that whatever you think of Trump, you know how to pronounce Ivanka's name. But take two letters off, suddenly the name Ivan is an Apple transport service - iVan. Even when reading the name Ivan Ivanovich, you don't even consider it weird that you pronounce the first Ivan differently than the second. If I remember Russian names correctly, Ivanovich means "Ivan's son", so I don't know why anyone would ever think the name suddenly changes its pronunciation.
Sade may be an English singer, but she was born in Nigeria, and Sade is a part of her real name, so I think she knows how to pronounce it. But, you can never know when you're too tough for English speakers. Evángelos Odysséas Papathanassíou would probably be too hard for native English speakers, so he went by Vangelis to make it simpler for people, and not only native English speakers. But, apparently Americans still pronounce him wrong. They seem to think it's said the same way they say "angel".
Also, having a phonetic language, I may not now German, but at least I can pronounce "shaufensterpuppen", not go "shoo... sheio... let's just make fun of Germans for having weird long words".
PS. As for the Russian names, my middle name might have been Petrovich in some Soviet paperwork, because my father's name was also Peter.
Sade was born in Nigeria so you cant apply English rules to foreign words.
@@SirWussiePants I... didn't? Pamela is the one who implied the pronunciation is weird.
Statler and Waldorf had a good gag similar to this on The Muppet Show. In reference to the word "tomato", Waldorf says to Statler, "So I was wondering, is it pronounced 'tomayto' or 'tomarto'?" And Statler confuses Waldorf by replying, "Is what pronounced 'tomayto' or 'tomarto'?" Left Waldorf speechless! He didn't know what to give as an answer!!
I said jif until moving in with my girlfriend. She wouldn't stop with the whole "you're saying it wrong" so now I say gif.
@John Barber annoyed
So far this is the best reasoning I've heard!
@@benstanfill363
Well, if even by your own admission gif is spelled and pronounced gif then why had you been saying jif for so long?
@@joshuaewalker I don't think it's pronounced gif, I just say it so my girlfriend doesn't complain.
@John Barber Ahhh yes... the Coolhwhip reference. Haha
And now we know HE is one of those people
who go around correcting typos on the internet comments
If .gif is pronounced jif instead of gif, literally how it's spelled, then why didn't he just name the file format .jif? Silly goose.
there actually is a .jif format, but I think it's way more obscure. But still, pronouncing "gif" as "jif" only adds to the confusion, Are you talking about .gif or .jif? Just say gif lmao
I am a graphic artist and have long scratched my head at everyone that is arguing about this. While the creator of the of the Graphics Interchange Format may claim the pronunciation "GIF" as "JIF", there is already a file format named ".JIF". While many people may not know or use that file format that often, they may have also heard of the format name another way JPEG. So while there can be the use of GIF; /dʒɪf/ JIF or /ɡɪf/ GHIF in common language, in the field of graphic design it's best to use the correct format or be looked at rather funny. Not that many designers or programs use the .jif format exclusively any longer but for the few of us that still remember it we wonder what all the confusion is about. I posted this exact same thing on a Tom Scott video a few months back. Nothing has changed so I'll put it here for others to see and enjoy/rant at. ♥
JPEG is pronounced "gaypeg". right?
@@paulgetchell LOL you know what, Sure! Why not.
Pretty sure GIF was created before JIF
@@paulgetchell JPEJ
@@Aeronor2001 Under the circumstances that does seem more legit. (or... lejit?)
Any time a Brit tells me the original creators call it "Jif," I remind them that the chemist who discovered the element called it "Aluminum"
While we're at it, British people pronounce aluminum incorrectly. It isn't spelled aluminium after all. And since mathematics isn't plural, the short version is math, not maths.
I concur. 🧐
Whenever I see “maths” alarm bells go off. What’s the point of shortening a word and then appending on the last letter? To make a singular plural because..? It’s like how references to companies sometimes goes like this: “RUclips are removing videos that violate their updated TOS which now bans English English and allows only the proper and correct ‘Merican English.” (don’t take that example too seriously).
I like the Numberphile channel but sometimes it drives my crazy.
Pretty sure Simon was deliberately pronouncing it as "Intimate Fasting" several times there. .
I fast intimately.
I mean, if gif can be pronounced with a had G, who's to say "intermediate" can't be pronounced as "intimate?"
the inventor said jif, wheres the debate?
Fine, I will pronounce jpeg: "GuhPej"!
It's guhpEeg
I call it Ja-PEG!
STEVE WILHITE: I created the format but somehow my say on how to pronounce GIF seems irrelevant to others
DICTIONARY: We welcome you to our world
Here's a twist: "high"
J(ose) + i + (enou)gh
Reminds me that "ghoti" is pronounced "fish"
enou(gh) + w(o)men + ac(ti)on
Opinion: Use what the creator or person who coined it intended. It pays homage to the origin and serves as a conversation starter with a little trivia. Especially if most say (or insist on saying) it differently.
My birthday is coming and I'm excited what "JIFTS" I'm gonna receive. Change my mind
It’s a gift, not a jift, so knock off the t and you get a gif (hard g). And g stands for graphics, not jraphics.
GIF stands for 'Graphic Interchange Format'. Therefore, it is pronounced as "gif", not "jif".
It's a pun on Jif peanutbutter, it's a name, the namer says it's a jif.
Oh yeah? Well, the S in laser stands for stimulated... but we don't pronounce it "lay-sir" do we? The U in scuba stands for underwater.... but we don't pronounce it "scuh-ba" do we?
@@ThEjOkErIsWiLd00 Indeed, although, to be fair, those slow the pronunciation of those words, and language often evolves with preference for faster pronunciations. In the case of GIF, speed doesn't really differ between the two ways to pronounce it, since the only difference between them is right at the start.
@@SkorpTS It takes the same time to say either scuhba or scooba.
@@ThEjOkErIsWiLd00 You are right. More research is required.
I've had semi serious arguments over this. 😂
It's gif with a hard G Simon, like in 'gift'. Case closed.
How do you pronounce giraffe?
“Gi-f” “G-if” all depends on how you group it really.
The strongest argument in favour of a hard G is his own written assertion of "jif not gif". It literally is gif, if you wanted to call it jif you should have named it jif.
Except graphic does not start with a J.
People: "PRONOUNCE THINGS CORRECTLY!!!"
Simon: "You know what, NO."
I was a Compuserve user (sometimes called CI$) when they introduced the .gif. I never heard of it referred to in any way other than “jif” until many years later. I still call it “jif” today.
BTW how is it today some refer to this “/“ as backslash when it’s a forward slash or just slash. In internet usage it’s always been “/“. The only time I’ve ever seen the backslash “\” is in DOS command line use to indicate a directory, as in C:\FOLDER.
"G" transitioned from "K" when the Indo-Europeans migrated to the MIddle-East and Europe. And that then went to Britain with the Anglo-Saxons. After Billy the Conq came over, the soft g sound came over with the French version. So we use soft "G" on words that came from Norman French and hard "G" on older words. (eg "guest" from Anglo-Saxons, versus "page" which came from Latin and went into English by way of Norman conquest). The Franco-Latin language changed "Y" to a "J" sound and that ended up in English and wasn't made an actual letter until the 19th century. So the bottom line is since graphicos came from old Greek via 19th century and not from Billy the Conq via France, it is GIF with a hard sound.
Sry to dissapoint you, but even if you bring up all arguments about history, etymology and further derivations. GIF will always be a Image Format that was created by Stephen Earl Wilhite. And as is the nature of modern products, all product names are exceptions, regardless of language (e.g. huawei, nike, ...). The manufacturer decides on the naming. If someone pronounces the product incorrectly even though they have been taught the correct pronunciation, they are simply naïve. This is a fact and not even remotely debatable.
@@alexis.d.santos that's absolutely incorrect in our culture. Once something is put out to the public, the creator's intention pales in comparison to the public usage.
In language everything, including product names (which this isn't really, since it's not a product- rather than a computing function), are subject to popular usage.
Sorry to disappoint you.
@@manaash4316 the inventor died this year and that was one of his wishes that he has shared with the public. I'm aware that most people go through life selfishly and don't value the creators of something. Go through life calmly without respecting the wishes of others and just do your thing. This naivety will definitely get you further. But yes, everyone should mind his own business ,right? If you feel better about doing everything the way you see fit, then do it. I support you and I don't hate you for it.
@@alexis.d.santos we can value the creator without completely agreeing with him, nor colloquially calling the format by his linguisticaply-incorrect preference.
While I disagree with the Steve Wilhite's intended pronunciation, I have to admit that he has jiven us a great jift.
You mean a jreat jift.
You have invited a bloodbath to your comment section
Gif, hard G. This was settled over twenty years ago.
No it wasn't.
Yes it was. It has only been recently that hipster D-Bags think it's cool to pronounce it wrong
@@TBomb85 By that you mean the guy who NAMED it?
@@StormCrownSr got it, you didn't watch the video. That's all you had to say
@@TBomb85 Not at all, we could talk grammar if you want? I am a big fan of giants, not so much of gingers. I tolerate gyms, George works there, so...
So. How do you pronounce "Soda?"
"Coke."
...And what kind of Coke do you want?
Dr Pepper.
Simon really just called me a sheep lol. Seriously, though, Jif is peanut butter. Gifs are images.
"There is no Gigantic conundrum. This was solved at inception" says the Giraffe 🦒 with a Gem 💎 in his forehead.
There is a reason English is one of the hardest languages!
It's one of the easier to learn.
No language is easy to master.
"Gif or Jif" 3 words that prove it is Gif and always be Gif
10/10 for blaze esque ness 🤣🤣🤣🤣
After watching this episode and hearing both pronunciations repeatedly, I am now thoroughly confused as to which pronunciation I actually use.
If we let inventors have the final word on their inventions, we'd all be answering the telephone with "Ahoy hoy!". Besides the whole "graphics starts with a hard 'g'", there's another consideration- clarity. You see, when GIFs and JPG were new, JPG were originally "JIF" (for JPEG Interchange Format). Today, "JFIF" is still around but in the early "8.3" days, it was JIF before (nonsensically) settling on "JPG" even though JPEG is an organization and there's no mention of format in that acronym. To avoid any confusion when talking to graphics people, you HAD to say "JIF" and "GIF" differently.
I prefer the Hard G for GIF because it contrasts with the J in JPEG.
These were the first two major image formats used on the web.
So maybe that's why the Hard G pronunciation is more common.
"To the bane of my goddamned life, Americans!" :'D
More importantly, is it gigabyte or jigabyte?
A careful listening to Back To The Future had me reconsider my assumption that it was all hard g’s for giga- prefix. And come realize that the soft g of GIF follows the same convention. Only it’s a bit odd to have the two different g’s in giga-
But since kilo- means 1000 and in computer realms 1024, I am still fine with mispronouncing “gigs” of RAM etc when used in that narrow context. I can never remember what the new units are that are supposed to infer 1024 instead of 1000. I don’t lose sleep over it.
I do not care what the creator says. It's GIF.
(Also; first!)
Lmao
I love this
And if anyone should give you flak about it: old English "gif" is pronounced "Yiff"
@@erinfinn2273 lol I love this
Must be a Democrat..
The speed at which Simon said "" shows he's done it quite a bit 😂
they would have spelt it jif if it was jif like the peanut butter
You mean like the trademarked and copyrighted jif peanut butter? That peanut butter?
@@StormCrownSr jif does not have a trademark on image formats silly billy
@@theblasphemousgamer4888 it has a trademark on Jif peanutbutter.
@@StormCrownSr that's not how trademarks work, Jif only owns the trademark for peanut butter, if someone makes a restaurant called "Jif" they could not be sued because Jif does not own trademarks for restaurants, same for image formats such as .gif.
My daughter just asked "why do I have to listen to that bald guy again? "
the title answers the question as far as i am concerned
Jif. As in, giraffe. (Figure that out)
Should we be taking pronunciation advice from a man who says “Berack Obamma”?
Well Obsmizzle got a Nobel peace prize for starting wars soooo...
What is even logic?
I read an article in 1990 that did an interview with Wilhite and it talked about the pronunciation and he said it was JIF. Even before I read that I pronounced it JIF and still do.
It’s ok to be wrong just don’t put it on the internet. :-)
Congratulations. Too bad you had to spell it differently to make your point which just makes everyone else's point that it's pronounced gif.
Joshua Walker no it doesn’t make the point. Clearly the point is JIF and GIF are pronounced the same thus underlining the silliness of it all.
Its pronounced Yif, everyone knows that 🤨
Yiff 😏
@@lorenzinorod23 Stop
@@JustSomeKittenwithaGun :)
I honestly never thought about it until a few years ago when everyone else started choosing sides. I might have used both interchangeably before without noticing.
Whatever you say Gohn Foley.
@@joshuaewalker Okay, Goshua Walker.
@@rtishere1910
Proves my point. Looks like gosh or got with a hard 'g'. Just like the way you're supposed to pronounce gif the same way you would gift. Jif is peanut butter.
So its hard G and there's no argument against that.