• @OldManBOMBIN@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    33
    edit-2
    7 months ago

    My giant giraffe agrees.

    If you’re still unconvinced, say “G”

    The letter starts with the J sound.

    Checkmate atheists.

    • @Imgonnatrythis@sh.itjust.works
      link
      fedilink
      117 months ago

      I may sound haughty and knowledgable when I say JiF then, but between just you and me, I didn’t know a damn thing about this and just decided to say it this way in my brain for reasons that remain unclear.

      • Flying SquidOPM
        link
        fedilink
        117 months ago

        Me too. I just always said it with a soft G because my brain told me that’s how it was pronounced.

      • @OldManBOMBIN@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        17 months ago

        Strange that I never got a notification for this. Hm.

        I’ve always pronounced it that way for whatever reason, and when I learned that was the correct way I was very high and mighty, lol

    • MeanEYE
      link
      fedilink
      2
      edit-2
      7 months ago

      Oooh, that’s how grammar works in English language? Okay, so me as a developer of some obscure thing from this point forward are instructing everyone to pronounce “home” as “hume”, since that’s how you pronounce “o” in “tomb”. I decided that solely because my software is loosely related to the meaning of the word. K thx bai.

        • MeanEYE
          link
          fedilink
          -37 months ago

          Neither did the author of graphic format. GIF is not a word, but initialism, like NSA, FBI, NASA, IBM, etc. And there are specific rules how they are read and pronounced.

          • @dogslayeggs@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            57 months ago

            NASA is an acronym, not an initialism. And guess how the last letter of NASA is pronounced versus how the A in the corresponding word is pronounced. Ah vs Uh.

            • MeanEYE
              link
              fedilink
              -27 months ago

              Irrelevant comment to the discussion at hand as the matter is not set in stone in English language. More to the point it doesn’t change the fact how GIF is pronounced. Even if you consider it an acronym it’s still a form of abbreviation and not a word on its own with known heritage, hence the general rules on how to pronounce letter g do not apply.

              Had the word originate from French part of the English dictionary (like gin, giraffe, etc.) then g is pronounced as j before vowels e and i and would make sense. But Germanic words (such as gift, geese) still use hard g. So applying normal rules is pointless, since English has no such thing.

              In short, it’s pronounced whatever the way people pronounce it. End of story.

    • snowe
      link
      fedilink
      -27 months ago

      I always think all the arguments are ridiculous because it’s essentially saying that someone is pronouncing a product (not a word) that they created incorrectly. This product even has a catchphrase for it. There’s literally nothing you can say to contradict that. It’s a product with a catchphrase that describes how to pronounce it. If you pronounce it differently then you do you, but you are wrong.

      • Annoyed_🦀 🏅A
        link
        17 months ago

        It’s also pretty funny when it’s about actual product you will get corrected to the intended pronunciation, or at least, allowed because people acknowledge there might be multiple way of reading a word based on where you from. Like potato and tomato.