I’m pretty sure gif is the more popular of the two pronunciations.
According to a survey eBay did 54% of people picked gif and 41% of people picked jif.
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Can someone point out the rule in the English language where the pronunciation of an initialism is based on the words it stands for?
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I imagine the difference jets bijjer on most other sites nowadays, it was certainly reflected in some infojraphics I can’t link.
Jetting back to the topic at hand: At the end of the day, the creator’s statement is not really an authority on the pronunciations of an acronym. Nor is there any hard rule that would easily settle this definitively.
Ok, but what is this rule? It’s been mentioned several times in this thread, but nowhere has it been sourced.
There isn’t a rule for pronouncing acronyms, since they are not words. They are a series of letters shortened for convenience.
One can’t even talk about root words, since many acronyms have multiple root sources in their compound.
If an acronym has a Latin root, a german root and a French root in it, which is correct?
Its jeff you amateurs.
With no hard rule that settles this, I’m going with what the inventor of the format himself went with.
There isn’t a rule that says when you do and don’t apply grammar. Grammar is automatically applied to all language. That’s how grammar works. For example if you want to pluralise GIF you say GIFs. Why? Because that’s how we usually pluralise words in English. If you want to show that you’re shouting it you say GIF! Why? Because that’s how we show that in English. If anything you need to show me the rule that says grammar doesn’t apply to acronyms.
That’s not true. Acronyms are words. Laser is an acronym, as is scuba.
It doesn’t matter, we say acronyms the same as we would say other words. For example “quark” was intended to be pronounced to rhyme with “cork” by its creator, but people naturally pronounce it to rhyme with “walk” because that more naturally fits in our brains.
Some acronyms are words, not all. GIF isn’t one of them.
Edit: (I meant initialism here, but I just woke up and I’m dumb.)
All acronyms are words. That’s what an acronym is.
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I mean initialism, Freudian slip, because initialisms aren’t neccesarily words like acronyms are. Gif is an initialism.
It doesn’t really matter though, you can argue grammar until you’re blue in the face, grammar is irrelevant here, because again, there’s no rule on this.
Sure, but you still haven’t demonstrated that “pronunciation of an initialism is based on the words it is derived from” is a rule in grammar.
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I recognise the council has made a decision, but given that it’s a stupid decision, I’ve elected to ignore it.
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Except the word “God” has definitively been defined as having a hard G. Giraffe has been definitively defined as having a soft G.
GIF has not been definitively defined as being either, so I’m going with what the inventor said, since it’s his invention.
Yeah, of course there is.
Why do people say gif when the creator says it’s jif at all? Because that’s how people naturally say it. According to what we all know g goes “g” and I know for a fact the sound you heard in your head just now doesn’t sound like jif. That assumption is based on grammar.
No, I haven’t. Nor have any of you demonstrated the rule that says the creator of a word decides how it’s created.
For Vulupas it is Yiff
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Gif - USA. Specifically NYC.
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I’m really confused about which side you’re on here, very conflicting information.
It’s the logical option when there’s no other rule to fall back on.
So if I own a store and spell it as “jrkfotkfnjg” and say it’s name is “Le’grocery”, that makes sense?