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Pronunciation of GIF (en.wikipedia.org)

submitted 2 days ago by can@sh.itjust.works to c/wikipedia@lemmy.world

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No, acronyms don't work that way

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[–] CTDummy@aussie.zone 1 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Giraffe, giardia, gigolo and giant.

[–] favoredponcho@lemmy.zip 14 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

Gimmicky gimlets give girls giggles given they gird their giddy gizzards for giga-girthy gifts.

[–] CTDummy@aussie.zone 7 points 1 day ago

Haha using some of the words above I did the same for a mate when we argued about it and constructed a deranged sentence. We eventually settled on it being a pointless argument since gi can make both sounds, forever dooming us to conflict. From the wiki:

In her coverage of Dow's piece, Canadian linguist Gretchen McCulloch theorizes that since the hard and soft g in this context are used with near-equal frequency, when a person first encounters the word GIF, they make a guess akin to flipping a coin by comparing it to other words they have encountered in the past. Once they have a favorite one way or the other, the notion is solidified—leading McCulloch to comment that this "probably means we'll be fighting the gif pronunciation war for generations to come".

[–] calliope@retrolemmy.com 4 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Giraffe, giardia, and gigolo are all of Italian origin. Giant is French.

Gif was created in the United States by an American and he had the arrogance to complain that everyone didn’t pronounce it his special way.

It boils down to his hubris that we even have the debate.

[–] RizzRustbolt@lemmy.world 3 points 1 day ago

He also didn't like sharing credit for its creation, so he had his bosses use legal pressure to get the other creator removed.

[–] Hule@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

'Murica! F yeah!

[–] calliope@retrolemmy.com 1 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

More like

Origins of words! That’s why!

[–] Hule@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Oh sorry! You're serious!

Then maybe graphic comes to English directly from Latin and so it's different than other words.

[–] calliope@retrolemmy.com 2 points 1 day ago

Originally from greek, graphikos.