There are plenty of vocal advocates (pun intended) on both sides of the debate, and I have seen many a temper flare over this issue. Though some would beg to differ, the pronunciation is not a hill to die on. I mean, who’s going to argue with its creator? Until he sells the naming rights like a Major League Ballpark, shouldn’t he get to decide how it is voiced? My name is spelled M-A-R-K, but what if I told you it’s actually pronounced “Steve?” Yes, it would be quite odd and confusing, but it’s my name, so it’s my choice. It is a soft ‘G,’ pronounced ‘jif.’ End of story.” “The Oxford English Dictionary accepts both pronunciations. Both pronunciations are given as correct by the Oxford English Dictionary and the American Heritage Dictionary.It’s understandable that one might be tempted to entertain a hard “G” sound considering that GIF is an acronym for “Graphics Interchange Format” and not something like “Giraffe Incubation Foundation” or “Gelatinous Inscription Factor.” But if you still feel compelled to pronounce it incorrectly, you will earn the disfavor of its inventor, Steve Wilhite. This pronunciation was also identified by CompuServe in their documentation of a graphics display program called CompuShow. According to the creator of the GIF format, Steve Wilhite, the pronunciation deliberately echoes that of an American peanut butter brand, Jif, and the employees of CompuServe would often say "Choosy developers choose GIF", spoofing this brand's television commercials. However, many people pronounce GIF with a hard "G", as in a 'gift' IPA: /ˈɡɪf/, reflecting the way it is pronounced in its own acronym (Graphics Interchange Format). The creators of the format pronounced GIF with a soft "g", /ˈdʒɪf/, as in "George". Controversy over the licensing agreement between the patent holder, Unisys, and CompuServe in 1994 inspired the development of the Portable Network Graphics (PNG) standard since then all the relevant patents have expired. This compression technique was patented in 1985. GIF images are compressed using the Lempel-Ziv-Welch (LZW) lossless data compression technique to reduce the file size without degrading the visual quality. The color limitation makes the GIF format unsuitable for reproducing color photographs and other images with continuous color, but it is well-suited for more simple images such as graphics or logos with solid areas of color. It also supports animations and allows a separate palette of 256 colors for each frame. The format uses a palette of up to 256 distinct colors from the 24-bit RGB color space. The Graphics Interchange Format (GIF) is an 8-bit-per-pixel bitmap image format that was introduced by CompuServe in 1987 and has since come into widespread usage on the World Wide Web due to its wide support and portability. The GIF (Graphics Interchange Format), pronounced "JIF", was designed by CompuServe and the official specification released in June of 1987 In the documentation for version 8.33 in the FAQ section, it states: Here's the evidence:ĬompuServe used to distribute a graphics display program called CompuShow. You disagree? Hey, I'm just quoting the inventors of the format. With this page I intend to clear this up once and for all. In the years since, a debate has been raging as to the correct way to pronounce "GIF": like "jif", or with a hard 'g' as in "gift" as a majority of Mac users seem to prefer. The GIF graphics file format was invented by CompuServe in 1987. Here’s a Timeline of the Debate About How to Pronounce GIF | TimeĪn example of a short GIF animation made with a digital camera Pronunciation of popular image formats - gif is pronounced jif (/ˈdʒɪf/)
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