Benju-Katchowee | The entire GIF pronounciation copypasta read in animalese. @BenjuKatchowee | Uploaded October 2016 | Updated October 2024, 1 hour ago.
Read your own shit over at acedio.github.io/animalese.js
Listen up, because I'm going to lay down some righteous knowledge on you.
It's Jif.
It's pronounced Jif. And you know what? I'm not even saying that because that's the way the creator says it. That's not even a factor, just ignore that all together.
"durr there's no j in GIF so there's no reason to pronounce it like that!"
Oh, then what about Gin?
Giraffe?
Gel?
Gym?
Ginger?
General?
"durr then what about gone, gas, gun, gate, and gut???"
How about you take a look at the vowels, genius. Notice anything? Maybe notice a pattern? Like there's some sort of pronunciation rule at work?
GIF is pronounced Jif because that's the way the English language works. With very few exceptions, here are the rules.
There are two ways to pronounce G; Hard and Soft.
There are two types of vowels; front and back, with some sub-types.
A hard G is used in front of non-front vowels, such as A, O, and U.
A soft G is used in front of front vowels, such as I, E, and Y.
Without even considering how the creator pronounces it, the absolute troglodytes that pronounce it with a hard G are just wrong.
"durr but what about girl, gear, and give????"
Okay, fair point, there are a small number of exceptions, so let's take a closer look at your brilliant argument.
There are about 1,000,000 words in the English language, and statistically, about 1.95% of them begin with a G.
That's 19,500 words that begin with a G.
On Wikipedia, there's an article that is literally a list of words where a hard G is used instead of a soft G.
The fact that you can create an article small enough to list them should clue you in a bit.
There are 61 words on that list. Let's round that up to 100.
100 out of 19,500 is 0.5%.
So you would rather argue that GIF is the exception to a rule that's followed 99.5% of the time, instead of admitting that you never looked up the grammar rule in the first place?
'well it stands for Graphics Interchange Format, so the G must be hard!'
This is such a stupid argument that it instantly makes you look retarded.
Acronyms are treated as their own new words. You don't pronounce an acronym based on the words that make it up.
I guess you pronounce JPEG as 'Jay-Pheg', because the P stands for Photographic?
Or take laser, which stands for Light Amplification By Stimulated Emission of Radiation.
I guess you pronounce that 'lahzer', because the A is short in Amplification.
Or take Scuba. Self-Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus.
Oh, but wait, that's a short U in Underwater, so it must be 'scuh-ba'.
There is no reason to pronounce GIF like 'gif'.
Just because it looks like that's how it's pronounced, doesn't mean that it is.
The English language is full of words that aren't pronounced the way they look.
So then how do you know how to pronounce those?
Well, you look at the general rules of the language itself.
You look at how 99.5% of the other words with the same structure are pronounced.
There's not much else to say about it.
If you still pronounce it 'gif', you're a fucking retard.
Be sure to continue fighting, especially if you're wrong, because that's hilarious.
Read your own shit over at acedio.github.io/animalese.js
Listen up, because I'm going to lay down some righteous knowledge on you.
It's Jif.
It's pronounced Jif. And you know what? I'm not even saying that because that's the way the creator says it. That's not even a factor, just ignore that all together.
"durr there's no j in GIF so there's no reason to pronounce it like that!"
Oh, then what about Gin?
Giraffe?
Gel?
Gym?
Ginger?
General?
"durr then what about gone, gas, gun, gate, and gut???"
How about you take a look at the vowels, genius. Notice anything? Maybe notice a pattern? Like there's some sort of pronunciation rule at work?
GIF is pronounced Jif because that's the way the English language works. With very few exceptions, here are the rules.
There are two ways to pronounce G; Hard and Soft.
There are two types of vowels; front and back, with some sub-types.
A hard G is used in front of non-front vowels, such as A, O, and U.
A soft G is used in front of front vowels, such as I, E, and Y.
Without even considering how the creator pronounces it, the absolute troglodytes that pronounce it with a hard G are just wrong.
"durr but what about girl, gear, and give????"
Okay, fair point, there are a small number of exceptions, so let's take a closer look at your brilliant argument.
There are about 1,000,000 words in the English language, and statistically, about 1.95% of them begin with a G.
That's 19,500 words that begin with a G.
On Wikipedia, there's an article that is literally a list of words where a hard G is used instead of a soft G.
The fact that you can create an article small enough to list them should clue you in a bit.
There are 61 words on that list. Let's round that up to 100.
100 out of 19,500 is 0.5%.
So you would rather argue that GIF is the exception to a rule that's followed 99.5% of the time, instead of admitting that you never looked up the grammar rule in the first place?
'well it stands for Graphics Interchange Format, so the G must be hard!'
This is such a stupid argument that it instantly makes you look retarded.
Acronyms are treated as their own new words. You don't pronounce an acronym based on the words that make it up.
I guess you pronounce JPEG as 'Jay-Pheg', because the P stands for Photographic?
Or take laser, which stands for Light Amplification By Stimulated Emission of Radiation.
I guess you pronounce that 'lahzer', because the A is short in Amplification.
Or take Scuba. Self-Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus.
Oh, but wait, that's a short U in Underwater, so it must be 'scuh-ba'.
There is no reason to pronounce GIF like 'gif'.
Just because it looks like that's how it's pronounced, doesn't mean that it is.
The English language is full of words that aren't pronounced the way they look.
So then how do you know how to pronounce those?
Well, you look at the general rules of the language itself.
You look at how 99.5% of the other words with the same structure are pronounced.
There's not much else to say about it.
If you still pronounce it 'gif', you're a fucking retard.
Be sure to continue fighting, especially if you're wrong, because that's hilarious.
