The creator of the format, Steve Wilhite, pronounced it with a soft “g.” Apparently this pronunciation is even specified in the tech specs for the format. He was riffing on a Jif peanut-butter advertising slogan, “Choosy mothers choose Jif,” by saying “Choosy programmers choose GIF.”
If you insist that “GIF” be pronounced with a hard g, because of some misguided insistence that acronyms must follow the pronunciation of the expanded phrase, missing the joke, AND ignoring the tech specs, for God’s sake, then I will insist that you also use the following pronunciations:
COVID: | ˌkōvīd | (“covyde”), as the “VI” is short for virus, with a long i.
SCUBA: | ˈskəbə | (“skubba”), as the U stands for “underwater,” which is pronounced with a short u.
LASER: | ˈlasir | (“lasseer”), as the A stands for amplfication (short a), the S for simulated (“sss” not “zzz”), and the E stands for emission (usually a long e, but debatable, okay)
YOLO: | ˈyōlwə | (“yole-wuh”) as the final O stands for “once”, with the o taking on a wuh sound.
POTUS: | ‘pätyo͞os | (“pot-use”) as the O stands for “office” (ah) and the U stands for “United” (you).
Just so I’m clear, I don’t care how you pronounce it - Just don’t tell me I’m wrong, or that your reason is superior if you want me to keep a straight face.
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