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If it were supposed to be pronounced "jif" it would have been spelled that way, I don't give two fucks what Stephen Wilhite said about it either.
Same with Gnome wanting to be pronounced "Gah-nome", or Latex "Latech". Just spell stuff the way you want it to be pronounced, or accept that people pronounce it another way
But they did! You're the one who fucked it up by using an "x" (Latin letter x) instead of a "χ" (Greek letter chi).
(Also, you didn't capitalize or format it correctly. It's supposed to be rendered as "L^A^Τ~Ε~Χ", and yes, those last three letters are
Τ Ε ΧGreek capital tau, epsilon, chi.)🤓
New hill: All brand names must be composed entirely of pronounceable characters from languages in actual use today
Um, I hate to break it to you, but...
Nuh uh
Gnome is spelt the way they want it to be said. Are you suggesting that gnome should be pronounced ‘nome’ like the garden ornament with a silent g.
I don’t care. Will always be Nome. Fuck Pedo Stallman’s preference.
Is it not?
Agreed. I think since the “G” stands for “graphics” it should be pronounced like the G in graphics.
I always respond that in that case, "jpeg" should be pronounced "jfeg".
But why? We don't pronounce any other acronyms like that, so why treat GIF different? The U in SCUBA isn't pronounced like it is in Underwater. The first A in CAPTCHA isn't pronounced the same as in Automated and the CH isn't split up to be pronounced like Computer and Human. The second A in NASA isn't pronounced like in Administration and the I in PIN doesn't get pronounced like Identification.
We read acronyms as their own words, not as a collection of the first sounds of each constituent word.
Tbf, you're pointing out the vowels which make the sounds needed to pronounce the acronym as a word. But I get it, either way, we're pronouncing the word as a standalone word.
Right in the same neighborhood... Jpeg (photographic)
Time to pronounce it jfeg lol
🤷 just cause?
Also, “gift”
Have any examples where the first letter of the acronym isn’t pronounced the same? (I’m sure there are some)
AWOL, OSHA, AIDS, ICE
UFO, not that that’s a super relevant question if we’re already admitting that our opinions are “just cause.” I think at that point the better question is “if just cause, why is there such a split in opinions?”
I think the reason GIF is so contentious is that if we can there’s a tendency to make acronyms sound like words if possible. FUBAR and SCUBA are pronounced the way they are because we’re trained from words like tuba to see the UBA and use a long U. Something like “oofo” (or “uh-fo” as you would likely argue) for UFO sounds like half a word, hence pronouncing the letters individually. The thing about GIF is that both pronunciations sound like a word, and so both feel valid enough that there can be a split in opinions. Any arguments one way or the other is just trying to justify a gut feeling about which way is “proper.”
To be fair, UFO is an initialism, not an acronym. But at the same time, if it was, I think it'd still be an example, because we'd likely pronounce the U like "oo" (as in "boo"), lol
Nearly all acronyms are technically initialisms
Nah, there's plenty of both, even mixed in very similar subject matter. Example:
An ATM (initialism) takes a card then asks you for its PIN (acronym).
we all know it's actually pronounced "yiff"
uwu
If it were meant to be pronounced 'giff' as in 'goober', it would have been spelled that way. You decide to turn an initialism into an acronym, you get what you get.
It always WAS an acronym. That's the entire point of the argument. "G"raphics "I"nterchange "F"ormat.
Nobody turned it into an acryonym, it just IS an acronym. That's not an opinion, it's a fact. The reason it's pronounced with a hard G is because Graphics is a hard G.
The thing is, that argument doesn't really hold up, because g in English has two major pronunciations.
English being a bad language doesn't excuse incorrect pronunciations. And if your argument was to hold any water, it'd be pronounced jraphics.