Trivia 11 of 30
How do you pronounce GIF?
The Graphics Interchange Format, or GIF, was first developed by computer scientist Steve Wilhite while working at CompuServe in 1987. He called it a GIF with a soft “g” like JIFF (Time.com).
However, in 2012, Oxford Dictionaries named GIF the USA Word of the Year and specified that “GIF may be pronounced with either a soft g (as in giant) or a hard g (as in graphic)” (Time.com).
The GHIFF vs JIFF debate became fierce.
In 2013, after receiving a Webby Lifetime Achievement Award, Wilhite used his renewed platform to shoot back at Oxford Dictionaries, proclaiming “It’s pronounced JIF not GIF” (Wikipedia.org).
Steve Wilhite's slide at the 2013 Webby Awards. Image: Wikipedia.org
The debate only escalated from there.
Even President Barack Obama chose a side, announcing his “official position” that GIF was pronounced GHIFF (Time.com).
The White House's account on Tumblr posted a humorous infographic indicating that GIF was to be pronounced with a hard g. Image: Wikipedia.org
A 2014 Mashable poll of more than 30,000 people worldwide found that seven in ten people say GHIFF (Mashable.com).
The number of users who supported each variant of the word's pronunciation according to Mashable's analysis. Image: Wikipedia.org
In 2015, Mental Floss invited a linguistics professor to perform a comprehensive analysis of the issue. The professor decided that it could be pronounced either way. But then a year later, Newsweek hired its own linguistics professor. Newsweek’s professor finally declared that GIF had to be pronounced GHIFF (Time.com).
There you have it. It’s mostly pronounced “GHIFF,” but “JIFF” ain’t wrong either. It’s definitely not “GEEF” or “JEEF” though.
