How do you pronounce .GIF?

[Fred the Barber]

The guy who made .Gifs isn't a linguist; and, even if he were, that doesn't mean his pronunciation should be given preferrence. 'Authorities' rarely ever prevent the masses from going with what they feel sounds right.

 

I don't see how the scholarly credentials of a person who names something are relevant to their right to name it. Suppose your mother named you "Fred". She taught you how to pronounce it, and you adopted the same pronunciation. You told everybody else, "Hi, I'm Fred". And they said, "You mean Fraid?", pronouncing it differently. And you responsed, "No, my name is pronounced 'Fred', not 'Fraid'." And then one of them responded, "No, no, you see, I'm a linguist, and there's this great theory I believe in called linguistical relativism, and since I pronounce your name 'Fraid', and so did my buddy over there, and there happen to be more of us than there are of you pronouncing your name 'Fred', then I'm afraid we're perfectly correct and your name can actually be correctly pronounced 'Fraid'. On the up-side, we might put in the dictionary that the way you're saying it is an uncommon or archaic pronunciation, though; we haven't decided yet. Anyway, Fraid, nice to meet you."

 

This situation is basically identical.

 

Just so we're clear, I have zero commitment to this argument, and am only posting on this thread because I find this entertaining. While I do happen to believe what I'm saying (although I am definitely exaggerating my arguments), I don't really care about the outcome or whether anybody else agrees, and I certainly don't care how anybody pronounces GIF, even if they're wrong.

[Yeah Way]

I don't see how the scholarly credentials of a person who names something are relevant to their right to name it. Suppose your mother named you "Fred". She taught you how to pronounce it, and you adopted the same pronunciation. You told everybody else, "Hi, I'm Fred". And they said, "You mean Fraid?", pronouncing it differently. And you responsed, "No, my name is pronounced 'Fred', not 'Fraid'." And then one of them responded, "No, no, you see, I'm a linguist, and there's this great theory I believe in called linguistical relativism, and since I pronounce your name 'Fraid', and so did my buddy over there, and there happen to be more of us than there are of you pronouncing your name 'Fred', then I'm afraid we're perfectly correct and your name can actually be correctly pronounced 'Fraid'. On the up-side, we might put in the dictionary that the way you're saying it is an uncommon or archaic pronunciation, though; we haven't decided yet. Anyway, Fraid, nice to meet you."

 

This situation is basically identical.

 

Just so we're clear, I have zero commitment to this argument, and am only posting on this thread because I find this entertaining. While I do happen to believe what I'm saying (although I am definitely exaggerating my arguments), I don't really care about the outcome or whether anybody else agrees, and I certainly don't care how anybody pronounces GIF, even if they're wrong.

Think of it this way. Fred came to English via French originally from very old German. When Frédéric, likely pronounced more French-like at first, became Frederick, there was probably a "French R"crowd and an "English R" crowd.

 

You've named your son Frédéric, and want his name to be pronounced with a French "R". You feel you have the right to correct people when they don't, but they just ignore you and call him Fred. If Fred himself doesn't care especially, you'll be the only one bothered calling him Frédéric.

 

Since .GIFs can't speak for themselves, we just ignore the naggy mother and go with whichever comes naturally to us. It really doesn't matter what the creator's preferred pronunciation is. If "correct pronunciation" actually held any sway in English, we'd all be talking very differently from how we do today.

[Stray Cat]

I had to do it:

 

[arakura]

Think of it this way. Fred came to English via French originally from very old German. When Frédéric, likely pronounced more French-like at first, became Frederick, there was probably a "French R"crowd and an "English R" crowd.

You've named your son Frédéric, and want his name to be pronounced with a French "R". You feel you have the right to correct people when they don't, but they just ignore you and call him Fred. If Fred himself doesn't care especially, you'll be the only one bothered calling him Frédéric.

Since .GIFs can't speak for themselves, we just ignore the naggy mother and go with whichever comes naturally to us. It really doesn't matter what the creator's preferred pronunciation is. If "correct pronunciation" actually held any sway in English, we'd all be talking very differently from how we do today.

No I'm pretty sure you're an asshole for mispronouncing his name on purpose regardless of whether the mother/creator bothers to nag you. Likewise, you can drop useless facts about where sounds come from, but if you don't call him his name you're still just being an asshole. The file extension was created by a guy who gave it a name, right? So what's wrong with you that you can't call it by that name? Does it happen to be offensive to you? Or is it so mind-blowingly counterintuitive that you can't remember it? Or maybe-and this might just be it-people are being prissy assholes. Just maybe. I mean, who knows...

(A bit late too the party lol)

[douggle]

According to the person who created the format its a hard G sound.

[douggle]

There wouldn't be a thread if people didn't care dude.

[arakura]

Get rekt

[Darklord Rooke]

So what's wrong with you that you can't call it by that name? 

 

Because regarding language use he doesn't know what he's talking about. He's suggesting we break the rules to make him happy, people think that's a ridiculous idea, and thus he's ignored. If that makes me an arsehole, c'est la vie. But it's a hard G, and always will be.

[nohman]

There is something beautiful about people arguing about this.

[arakura]

First of all, it's not your place to determine whether it matters or not to him. Secondly, it's a blanket statement about named because apparently a certain quoted user doesn't feel the need to call people correctly, which is crap.

Idk what rooke is smoking but it's completely okay to name something you created and people should honor that name by actually using it. Not butcher it be it in written or spoken form. It's not like it's hard to do. My god people are prissy. It's very disappointing.

So yes, you are an asshole.

[Deep Blue]

There is something beautiful about people arguing about this.

[Eclipsed]

dat arakura tantrum   

 

~~

GGGGGGif all the way bby

[Darklord Rooke]

Idk what rooke is smoking but it's completely okay to name something you created and people should honor that name by actually using it. Not butcher it be it in written or spoken form. It's not like it's hard to do. My god people are prissy. It's very disappointing.

So yes, you are an asshole.

 

Firstly - Yes it is okay to name something.

 

Secondly - It is also okay to ignore him, which is what everybody is doing.

 

Thirdly - Conforming to his method of pronunciation is butchering the rules of the English language, so either way something gets butchered. It's a matter of priorities.

 

Fourthly - Yes, I'm an arsehole and I also don't care. Deal with it.

[Decay]

First of all, it's not your place to determine whether it matters or not to him. Secondly, it's a blanket statement about named because apparently a certain quoted user doesn't feel the need to call people correctly, which is crap.

Idk what rooke is smoking but it's completely okay to name something you created and people should honor that name by actually using it. Not butcher it be it in written or spoken form. It's not like it's hard to do. My god people are prissy. It's very disappointing.

So yes, you are an asshole.

 

[atorq]

No I'm pretty sure you're an asshole for mispronouncing his name on purpose regardless of whether the mother/creator bothers to nag you.

 

By that definition pretty much everyone who doesn't speak Swedish and tries to pronounce my name is an asshole. 

 

Only terrible people say jif, but they will all burn in hell so don't worry.

[Fred the Barber]

Well, intention matters here - unintentionally mispronouncing a name or word due to ignorance, accent, inability to produce certain phonemes, religious preference, etc., is obviously not grounds for being called an asshole. On the other hand, if you repeatedly, intentionally mispronounce my name, despite my correcting you otherwise, I'm probably going to think you're an asshole.

 

Soft g. Because I'm not an asshole.

 

[Darklord Rooke]

On the other hand, if you repeatedly, intentionally mispronounce my name, despite my correcting you otherwise, I'm probably going to think you're an asshole.

 

I feel like Ferdinand the Hair Stylist is trying to imply something here, impart an important message, but for the life of me I can't figure out what it could be...

[Fred the Barber]

And sometimes, I'll even know you're an asshole.

[Eclipsed]

The only Jif you'll get from me is if you're actually spelled Jif. like the peanut butter.

 

[Kurisu-Chan]

The actual creator of the Gif format said it would be pronounced as Jif, so i pronounce Jif.