Recently, a debate sparked on the social media when White House opined that GIF, the popular images format, is pronounced with a hard ‘g.’ However, the creator of GIF has taken the White House to task over this, affirming that the pronunciation is made with a soft ‘g’ and all contrary speculations are invalid.
The White House was of the opinion that in pronouncing ‘GIF’, ‘g’ has to be pronounced as we do in ‘gift.’ Many thought that this may finally put an end to a rather long debate that has continued over the years. Social media had been undivided as to take White House’s word on it or disagree.
And then stepped in the former CompuServe employee, Steve Wilhite, who is credited as being the original creator of the GIF format. Wilhite dismissed the speculations by the White House and also lambasted the Oxford dictionary over promoting a wrong pronunciation.
According to him, “The Oxford English Dictionary accepts both pronunciations. They are wrong. It is a soft ‘G,’ pronounced ‘jif.’ End of story.” That should effectively put an end to all the energy that is being expended on such a pertinent issue. And we also hope that White House would decide to indulge itself with slightly more important tasks, rather than deciding the right pronunciation of image formats.
Courtesy: CNET
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