this post was submitted on 23 Aug 2024
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For me, it may be that the toilet paper roll needs to have the open end away from the wall. I don't want to reach under the roll to take a piece! That's ludicrous!

That or my recent addiction to correcting people when they use "less" when they should use "fewer"

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[–] Chainweasel@lemmy.world 211 points 4 months ago (18 children)

If it were supposed to be pronounced "jif" it would have been spelled that way, I don't give two fucks what Stephen Wilhite said about it either.

[–] ISOmorph 68 points 4 months ago (4 children)

Same with Gnome wanting to be pronounced "Gah-nome", or Latex "Latech". Just spell stuff the way you want it to be pronounced, or accept that people pronounce it another way

[–] grue@lemmy.world 54 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (3 children)

or Latex “Latech”. Just spell stuff the way you want it to be pronounced

But they did! You're the one who fucked it up by using an "x" (Latin letter x) instead of a "χ" (Greek letter chi).

(Also, you didn't capitalize or format it correctly. It's supposed to be rendered as "L^A^Τ~Ε~Χ", and yes, those last three letters are Τ Ε Χ Greek capital tau, epsilon, chi.)

🤓

[–] Bgugi@lemmy.world 17 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Lol, the only way to be more obtuse would be to say "our project name has no approved transliteration or Unicode string... Render this svg inline or don't talk about us."

[–] grue@lemmy.world 9 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

Reminds me of , as well as #11 in this list.

(I'd love to scale that image to the same size as the text, but I don't know if Lemmy's markdown supports it.)

[–] olafurp@lemmy.world 10 points 4 months ago

Just letting you know I appreciate that you used the actual "χ" instead of just "X" when referring to the letter Chi.

[–] Feathercrown@lemmy.world 3 points 4 months ago (1 children)

New hill: All brand names must be composed entirely of pronounceable characters from languages in actual use today

[–] grue@lemmy.world 9 points 4 months ago (1 children)
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[–] SkaveRat@discuss.tchncs.de 33 points 4 months ago (2 children)

we all know it's actually pronounced "yiff"

[–] Tattorack@lemmy.world 6 points 4 months ago

Ah, you mean that old Linux sound server. Very deep reference.

[–] slouching_employer@lemmy.one 19 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (2 children)

Agreed. I think since the “G” stands for “graphics” it should be pronounced like the G in graphics.

[–] atocci@lemmy.world 23 points 4 months ago (9 children)

But why? We don't pronounce any other acronyms like that, so why treat GIF different? The U in SCUBA isn't pronounced like it is in Underwater. The first A in CAPTCHA isn't pronounced the same as in Automated and the CH isn't split up to be pronounced like Computer and Human. The second A in NASA isn't pronounced like in Administration and the I in PIN doesn't get pronounced like Identification.

We read acronyms as their own words, not as a collection of the first sounds of each constituent word.

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[–] Bruncvik@lemmy.world 9 points 4 months ago

I always respond that in that case, "jpeg" should be pronounced "jfeg".

[–] invertedspear@lemm.ee 19 points 4 months ago (3 children)

My argument for this is that gift is pronounced with a hard g, why would removing the t change anything. I think SW was trolling. But you want to know what’s totally bonkers? My coworker pronounced Git with a soft g. WTF my dude?

[–] cheesymoonshadow@lemmings.world 7 points 4 months ago

Jithub makes me think of a place you go to get an STD.

[–] Bgugi@lemmy.world 4 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

Gi (martial arts uniform) and gin

Gel and geld

[–] jaggedrobotpubes@lemmy.world 2 points 4 months ago

Git is now pronounced "zhee", with a thimble of espresso.

[–] paddirn@lemmy.world 17 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Also .JIF is already a file format and as far as I know, it's pronounced, "jif" just like it looks. So if "gif" and "jif" are supposed to be pronounced the same way, then why do we even have the letter J? Fuck the letter C too while we're at it, get a unique sound, you bastard letter.

https://fileinfo.com/extension/jiff

[–] notnotmike@programming.dev 5 points 4 months ago

Oh wow that's actually a really good point!

Now prepare for it to be dismissed! People are too dug in at this point, there's no going back. The trenches have been dug.

[–] atocci@lemmy.world 16 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (2 children)

There are so many other acronyms where you don't pronounce every letter the same as their constituent words, I don't understand why GIF is the one people have a problem with accepting. SCUBA, NASA, CAPTCHA, OWCA, etc.

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[–] notnotmike@programming.dev 9 points 4 months ago

I have the opposite view, but I thought it would be too incendiary a topic to bring up...

[–] Bgugi@lemmy.world 8 points 4 months ago (1 children)

The thing is, that argument doesn't really hold up, because g in English has two major pronunciations.

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[–] Cocodapuf@lemmy.world 4 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

What a coincidence! This is my favorite hill to troll people on!

It's absolutely meaningless, it just doesn't matter, and people are sooo opinionated about it!

[–] wjrii@lemmy.world 3 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (2 children)

If it were meant to be pronounced 'giff' as in 'goober', it would have been spelled that way. You decide to turn an initialism into an acronym, you get what you get.

[–] Adderbox76@lemmy.ca 6 points 4 months ago (1 children)

It always WAS an acronym. That's the entire point of the argument. "G"raphics "I"nterchange "F"ormat.

Nobody turned it into an acryonym, it just IS an acronym. That's not an opinion, it's a fact. The reason it's pronounced with a hard G is because Graphics is a hard G.

[–] wjrii@lemmy.world 6 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (1 children)

And Photographic is pronounced as /f/, yet we don't insist on JPhEG or JFEG. Language is weird, and people often decline to create an acronym from a set of initials that could theoretically be one ("CIA"), or make an acronym where it may not initially seem natural ("HMMWV").

Choosy nerds choose gif, soft G. :-)

[–] Adderbox76@lemmy.ca 5 points 4 months ago (1 children)

It's my favourite battle. And when the war against AI comes, it'll be because the AI will make a final decision and then decide the other side needs to be ultimately defeated.

[–] PM_Your_Nudes_Please@lemmy.world 3 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

Jod Himself could descend from heaven, and decree “actually it’s pronounced jif…” And I’d still continue pronouncing it gif.

[–] Blaster_M@lemmy.world 2 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)
[–] 1337admin@1337lemmy.com 2 points 4 months ago (1 children)

but g followed by i or e very regularly makes a soft g in English (and always makes a soft g in Italian, which is irrelevant I guess but I speak both). you may as well purposely mispronounce giraffe, gelatin, germ, Giorgio, giant, gentle, etc while you're at it since it they don't start with a j.

by english rules it very often is a soft g, but could be hard as well, but the creator has clarified multiple times it is meant to be soft, so why are people fighting it?

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