Do You Pronounce it GIF (Giraffe) or GIF (Graphic)?

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1 Aug 2008 at 12:40am What do You do for Extra Energy? 1 Aug 2008 at 12:21am How can You Edit Photos on the iPhone? 1 Aug 2008 at 12:10am How do You Edit Images Without Installing Software? 31 Jul 2008 at 11:24pmDo You Pronounce it GIF (Giraffe) or GIF (Graphic)?31 Jul 2008 at 11:14pm

I always thought it was GIF with a G as in “Gary” or “Getty,” or “Give me a whopper combo” :)

But, if it is in fact Jiff, like the peanut butter, I am glad to know, especially since I do photography work!

Cool site, by the way! I remember you from Tech TV’s Call for Help, but just learn of your site today. :)

When we had this debate in our Web UI development team, I uncovered a 1987 USENET post about this “new” format, pronounced “Jiff”: http://groups.google.com/group/comp.sys.atari.st/browse_thread/thread/89921707b332eca6/

When one hold-out insisted that it should be “Giff”, because it is the “Graphical” Interchange Format, not “Jraphical”, we agreed that he could say it that way, provided that he pronounce “JPEG” as though it was “Jay-Pheg”, because it is the Joint “Photographics” Expert Group, not “Potographics”.

A la Jiff. I have always pronounced it that way. However being Canadian you may think that I speak funny anyhow.

(About = aboot)

Even though I don’t hear it that way!

I call it GIF like Jiffy peanut butter. Golly, what a radical movement.

That’s a cool site though. Too bad you can’t create GIFs out of movies with that site.

I have always called it “jiff” and at one time was around other programmers using the hard G and figured I had been pronouncing it wrong… but once it stuck, couldn’t change it.. I guess the most important aspect is, when I say it, everyone knows what I am talking about, so if it works, why change?

When I typed “say GIF” in a terminal window, it’s sounds like “gift” without the t sound.

I’ve always called it a “g-raphics” gif. :P

But I guess “j-iff” sounds better, so meh.

I pronouce it Jif, or Gif but Jif, lol!

This is awesome!! I found this website like 2 weeks ago, very awesome tool. you can make some very funny gif’s with this. I’m sorry i cant think of it now but there is a program you can download that has a very great interface and is just so easy to use. And yes i pronounce it jiff.

Well Chris, I would always just spell out the word. For example: I would pronounce GIF as ‘gee-ai-eff’. I did the same with JPEG [Jay-Pee-ii-gee] and PNG [Pee-En-Gee].

Now that I’m a bit older, I pronounce them the way they look:

The ‘G’ in GIF would be pronounced like ‘Jiff’
JPEG/JPG = Jay-Peg

…now that I think of it, how do you pronounce PNG? Do you just spell it out?

Err, what a load of shibboleth. It is G with a Geh.

Compuserve Graphics Interchange File Format. GIF. That G for G. Not a J. What is this bollox?

J is for joint, as in JPEG. Not Joy Peeg or prounouncing PNG with a PW from pwn so that it comes out as oang.

Animated GIF authoring tools… hmm let me have a think… photoshop?

I don’t care if the guy who invented the format thinks it should be pronounced Jiff. He’s wrong about how to pronounce the name of the format he invented. Like I should look to a computer nerd for the broad knowledge and real-life experience that would lead someone to know how best to pronounce something.

I wish there were a quicklook plugin for the Mac that would let you you view animated .GIFs