Graphics Interchange Format, or GIF, was introduced by CompuServe in 1987. Show someone the word ?GIF? and ask them to read it aloud. Most English speakers will pronounce it with a hard ?g? as in ?gift?. Unfortunately, they are wrong ? it?s pronounced ?jiff?, with a soft ?g?, and the evidence is presented at the GIF Pronunciation Page.
Personally, I don?t think it matters what the original programmers intended; almost everyone pronounces GIF the way it is written. There are pedants who insist on using ?jiff? but no one understands them! Do you prefer GIF or JIFF? I?m firmly in the GIF camp and my campaign to correct its pronunciation starts here!
(Incidentally, the PNG specification also insists on ?ping? rather than ?pee en gee?, but it?s an open standard so we can change that!)
Welcome to Our Community
Wanting to join the rest of our members? Feel free to sign up today.
This site uses cookies to help personalise content, tailor your experience and to keep you logged in if you register.
By continuing to use this site, you are consenting to our use of cookies.
Attention: "role based name" email prefixes such as support, webmaster, info, contact, forum, service, affiliate, admin, traffic, partners, marketing, etc., for our member accounts are not permitted. They are acceptable for a vendor listing, but not for the member email. This is due to bulk email processors scrubbing them for delivery due to extremely high bounce rates. Please apply for membership using a personalized email prefix. Something like bob@xxxxx.com.
If we discover you signed up with a role based name we will give you only one message to change it. After 3 days your account will be removed if the email is not changed.
