âJifâ is the original pronunciation. It is a pun, a play on the word âjifâ short for âjiffyâ meaning a short amount of time, as in âIâll send it to you in a gifâ. The newer pronunciation has become popular based on the fallacious reasoning that an acronym should be pronounced the same as its constituent words, which isnât a thing at all.
Language evolves, and both pronunciations are common enough to be considered acceptable. The only way to be wrong about how to pronounce the word is to claim one of the pronunciations is wrong.
Become popular? Itâs been popular roughly for the lifespan of the format. Itâs hardly languageâs fault the developer wanted to make an unfunny reference to a since forgotten peanut butter slogan.
On the other hand linguistics indicate a hard g sound with the construction of the word, constituent words aside. Plenty of four letter words starting with the gi combo have a hard g, including but not limited to gift which you may notice is very similarly constructed.
Whatever else the English language may throw at us, people appreciate consistency because we can make some sense of the world. A hard g is the consistent, predictable, sensible choice for the limited availability of those virtues English offers.
There exists other words that start with gi but use the soft g, gin for example. But regardless, the pronunciation of one word is not determined by the pronunciation of other unrelated words.
Become popular? Itâs been popular roughly for the lifespan of the format.
Iâm gonna stop you there, because Iâve been using the format for about 30 years, and people only started using the new pronunciation in the last 10-15.
Everything you said about linguistics is entirely crap. English is not a proscriptive language. English linguistics doesnât indicate anything at all. It is descriptive, and is anything but consistent. There are no rules about word construction or pronunciation. Words are pronounced the way they are understood, and if you are understood then you have pronounced them correctly.
You could argue that the original pronunciation is archaic, like âencyclopaedia,â but the problem there is that the word itself is like 35 years old, and there are people like me who have been using the word since there was only one acceptable pronunciation who arenât likely to change.
Iâm gonna stop you there, because Iâve been using the format for about 30 years, and people only started using the new pronunciation in the last 10-15.
Iâve been using the word since the mid 90s and itâs always been hard G for me.
I donât say that to suggest that you or anyone else are wrong to say it with a soft G (although my brain cringes each time I hear it), but since I donât think I invented the hard G pronunciation I think claiming itâs a recent thing is a fallacious argument against the hard G.
Nobody invented the mispronunciations, it just happens, which is why the manual included a guide. The inventor of the word (and the format) had to tell people how it was pronounced and why he chose the name, just like every other brand name.
What is recent is the fallacious arguments related to how acronyms are supposed to be pronounced, part of a larger trend towards obstinate and belligerent defense of an objectively and demonstrably false argument. The internet has made people feel like their opinions are just as valid as facts.
I see it as part of what Colbert called âtruthiness.â There is no rule for how the word should be pronounced, but it feels like there should be, which is why the argument is so often repeated. The feeling of being right is more important than the reality of ambiguity, and people seek out validation of their presuppositions. Itâs that overconfidence that fosters animosity towards debate, which is why people get so heated about silly things like this.
people only started using the new pronunciation in the last 10-15.
As someone else pointed out already, this is untrue. While it may not have been popular in your circles, it definitely was in others. Iâve been saying it with a hard g as long as you have with a soft and Iâm not the originator either.
English linguistics doesnât indicate anything at all.
They absolutely do. Thatâs why you can sound out a word youâve never seen before. You may not always be right when you do because they indicate, they donât define.
There are no rules about word construction or pronunciation.
There are, there are just exceptions. For example, an e at the end of the word is silent. Iâm certain you can give me a word where itâs not, but there are at least six in this paragraph alone where it is.
if you are understood then you have pronounced them correctly
In this logic if someone has been pronouncing a word all their life with a single pronunciation and travels to another location with a much different accent they can only now be pronouncing the word wrong.
If understanding is also the only metric then a hard g would still be preferable. Not only does a written g tend to make people lean to a hard g in my experience, but thereâs more words that could be mistaken for a soft g pronunciation.
You could argue that the original pronunciation is archaic,
Could I not argue that the original pronunciation has fallen out of favor?
the word itself is like 35 years old
Is there a time requirement for pronunciations to become archaic?
since there was only one acceptable pronunciation
Which isnât a time that existed, as weâve established
who arenât likely to change.
Given your stance on language this is absolutely a you problem. If the rest of us collectively decided to understand it as only with a hard g, you would not be understood and therefore be pronouncing it wrong by your own logic.
There are, there are just exceptions. For example, an e at the end of the word is silent. Iâm certain you can give me a word where itâs not, but there are at least six in this paragraph alone where it is.
One of the most common words with a final âeâ in that paragraph is âtheâ which not only has a final âeâ sound, but has two different final âeâ sounds depending on the context: âthe endâ uses a /Ă°i/ pronunciation but âthe wordâ uses a /Ă°É/ pronunciation. English is very stupid.
But, I agree with your assessment. English has rules, or at least patterns. âGâ is most often hard, not soft, because âJâ is available for the soft version, but thereâs no alternative for the hard version. English tends to follow patterns, and âgiftâ has a hard g, and it (and words based on it) are the only ones that start with âgifâ, so every âgifâ word is hard. Because âtâ (unlike âeâ) canât change the sounds before it, the pattern says that âgifâ should have a hard âgâ.
If it were âgirâ, then there would be more debate. The word âgiraffeâ has a soft âgâ but âgirlâ has a hard one, so the pattern is more muddy.
Also, people who coin words donât get to decide how theyâll be pronounced. They can certainly try, but theyâll often lose. There are plenty of words in English borrowed from other languages that not only sound nothing like the original language, but that sound nothing like theyâd sound if they were English words. For example, âlingerieâ. Itâs a French word, but the English pronunciation sounds nothing like a French word. In fact, if someone just sounded out the word as if it were an English word, theyâd probably get much closer to the French pronunciation than the awful âlawn-je-rayâ which is the current accepted English pronunciation (though, theyâd probably assume a hard âgâ sound).
In this case, itâs too bad that Steve Wilhite didnât have a background in linguistics or he would have realized that people would see âgifâ and assume a hard âgâ. It was a losing fight from the start because he either didnât understand the assumptions people would have when they saw those letters, or he thought that somehow he could successfully fight the tide all by himself.
Your illustration using the word âtheâ here is awesome. Particularly the alternative pronunciations. I would also like to add the well known words âbeâ, âheâ, âsheâ and âmeâ into the mix.
If understanding is also the only metric then a hard g would still be preferable. Not only does a written g tend to make people lean to a hard g in my experience, but thereâs more words that could be mistaken for a soft g pronunciation.
What? Thatâs just a silly claim, the word âgiftâ is generally pronounced [gÉȘftÌ] with the /t/ having no release, often the last consonant isnât even perceived by speakers, if anything that is extremely easy to mix up with âgifâ using a /g/ as opposed using a /dÊ/, compared to any other words (well I guess thereâs âjifâ the peanut butter brand?). You make a bad argument.
Also yes, if someone pronounced or used a word one way and then went to some theoretical place where everyone else pronounced or used it in a way where it becomes mutually unintelligible, then yes you WOULD be saying it âwrongâ if you insisted on pronouncing it in a way nobody can decipher it, if you can call anything in language âwrongâ. French speakers canât just go say shit to Sicilian speakers and expect to be understood.
But no, there are no rules about word construction or pronunciation. The closest thing we have to ârulesâ is loose standards that people commonly us. And in the context of this conversation, most English standards donât invoke any sort of phonemic spelling like e.g. Spanish or French or Polish or Korean or whatever. There are no âspelling rulesâ that dictate that a certain sequence of letters or words has to be pronounced a certain way regardless of context, even according to standards of English. None of that âexceptionsâ bs, Modern English spelling is mostly based off of a writing system of a language that Modern English speakers wouldnât even understand, and as such there are only a few sometimes-consistencies-ish, like using certain constructs to differentiate lax vs tense vowels like doubling the following consonant letter vs appending an âeâ at the end, when applicable. Itâs just infeasible due to the history of the writing system to apply a consistent convention for phonemic spelling without reforming the entire orthography.
This is opposed to, say, French, in which standard spellings have actually consistent throughout the entire language rules for how a certain combination of letters is formally pronounced (regardless of how much French speakers like to claim their spelling is nonsense), sometimes with secondary/uncommon pronunciations, and with exceptions to those rules. And consistent rules for phenomena like liaison. And applying those rules, you can systematically pronounce a majority of words accurately even if youâve never encountered the language in your life. Hereâs a table just for fun: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_orthography#Spelling_to_sound_correspondences
This is not something you can do in English.
And even using the argument of standards, the most common descriptions of Standard English (e.g. Oxfordâs dictionaries, Merriam-Webster, AHD) all list both /gÉȘf/ and /dÊÉȘf/.
Also you claim that the latter is falling out of favor, but that seems to have come from thin air. All the resources on the matter in the first place are online polls with a small sample size and a lot of bias in terms of the location of the respondants from like a decade ago, idk how you determine that one is more popular than the other in a way other than âI hear X pronunciation more than Yâ. The fact that this argument is seen all over the internet and is extremely contentious should be proof enough to show you that that claim is fallacious.
From the top thereâs also jiff, meaning hurry. With no more effort that puts me at two and you at one, which is more as I said. Mine are also direct homophones whereas yours relies on a certain practice that I have very different experience on the frequency of than you do.
So you recognize how exceptions work but deny theyâre a part of English construction? Itâs all just barely organized chaos? Whereâs whatever amount of organization coming from if not rules that are frequently excepted?
Yes, Iâm well aware that other languages have much better structure. Iâm not sure how that means English doesnât have rules. As a kid surely between you and some friend someoneâs house had fewer rules that were less enforced. Did that mean they didnât have any rules? Of course not!
Iâll admit my falling out of favor statement isnât scientific. However if we take the other fellaâs assertation about it only being pronounced one way to begin with then itâs very much falling out of favor.
Either way Iâm not looking to start yet another branch of this argument. Least of all with someone who starts by saying English doesnât have rules with exceptions because French does.
Iâve never had the problem of not being understood. And regardless of how long the time period was, there was a time when one guy spoke aloud the word when he invented it. You can use the new pronunciation if you like, but I use the original, as I have for 30+ years, and I will continue to do so because both are acceptable. If you donât like it, thatâs a you problem.
Iâve never had the problem of not being understood.
You are either a uniquely spectacular communicator or a liar. Itâs not for me to say which. Regardless thatâs not the point. If you use the soft g sound and are not understood then, by your own explanation you are saying it wrong. Thatâs something you need to contend with.
And regardless of how long the time period was
So no time requirement on archaic then?
there was a time when one guy spoke aloud the word when he invented it.
As is true of every word and yet Iâm sure there are words you say differently than the first person. Iâll bet you donât say the name of the element with the atomic number 13 the same way the man who discovered it does. Not to mention who knows how many words England took from France, mangled, and then got adjusted again in America. Who is the correct first person there, or does the first person only matter with this specific issue?
You can use the new pronunciation
I will as well many others.
as I have for 30+ years,
Me too! Still doesnât make yours right and mine wrong no matter how hard you try to deride it as ânewâ when itâs barely newer than the format.
and I will continue to do so
I canât stop you. I can think you ridiculous for doing so but my suspicion that this would be the only reason I would think that of you diminishes with each response you send.
both are acceptable
Perhaps, but one seems to be falling out of favor. Just like a double space after a period or writing out words greater than ten but less than one hundred.
I could call it a moving picture and not be wrong, doesnât mean people wouldnât think me weird for doing so. I would have to deal with that the way you need to deal with what your choices cause people to think of you.
If you donât like it, thatâs a you problem.
Sure, but it wonât stop me from making my own conclusions just like any other thing. The same is true for all of humanity to varying degrees.
Youâre still not listening. Iâm not deriding anything, and Iâm not saying Iâm right and youâre wrong. There are two pronunciations that are both in use, and itâs objectively true that one is the original and the other is the new one. Arguing anything else is dishonest. One is not archaic, because itâs still being used.
As for what you think of me, I really donât care. Youâre trying to convince me to pronounce a product name differently than I have done my entire life when I was told by the creator of the product how to pronounce it. Iâve heard your arguments, and the only linguistically relevant argument is that everyone just started doing it. That will be a compelling argument 100 years from now, but itâs not a compelling argument to change.
You are deriding it. Is calling the chess piece a queen instead of a Vizir new? Thereâs a much bigger gap between that change than this one? Or is it not new because thatâs what you know it as?
You can hide behind whatever you want, but your âtold by the creatorâ rhetoric exposes you, even if you canât admit it to yourself.
Itâs not a compelling argument for you to change, again, because youâve decided your way is the better one. Language, much like any other form of knowledge, has been changing, evolving, and updating with increasing speed for as long as this format has been around. I bet if you think you can figure out the connection.
It may be objectively true that one is the way the creator pronounced it but, as stated, itâs also objectively true that originations donât dictate the pronunciations of words. Iâve given you plenty of ways that English does operate and how that lends itself to the hard g pronunciation as well as the fact that the so-called ânewâ pronunciation has been around nearly as long as the other one. Of course you could call that the âoldâ one, which is a more common counterpoint to new, yet you consistently choose âoriginalâ. But I guess neither of us is listening, hmm?
Whatever. Take your ball and go home and keep telling yourself you donât care while telling everyone else you do with your own choices.
You sound really upset about this. Originations, at the time of origination, is the only thing that dictates the pronunciation of a new word. We have all been âtold by the creatorâ because he wrote it down for everyone to avoid confusion. Confusion followed anyway, in part due to the absurd lies people shared online (including yourself) about non-existent rules of English linguistics. Yes, I find that annoying, but thatâs lingguistics. Things change, sometimes for stupid reasons, but that doesnât mean they havenât changed. Pointing out that the reasons are stupid is accurate, and we shouldnât pretend that they arenât stupid.
Maybe tomorrow people will start saying âgifeâ and then that will be the new pronunciation. New and old are not value judgements, they are just the reality of the passage of time and the evolution of language. If they started saying âgifeâ because they think the promunciation of acronyms is required to change every 15 years, then that would also be a stupid reason to change. Itâs still a new pronunciation, and then there would be three acceptable pronunciations of the word.
I am listening to you, you just arenât saying anything of value. Youâre attacking me because you donât like that I havenât adopted your preferred pronunciation of a word. You donât like me because I havenât changed to fit your preference. I donât care about you, because youâre the sort of person who makes value judgements about a person based on their pronunciations of a word. Your entire argument is that I should change because you donât like the way I talk. Iâm not asking you to change the way you talk. Iâm pointing out the flaw in your thinking, and asking you to think for yourself. Donât listen to internet experts who make shit up. Thatâs a path to ruin, and while weâre talking about something silly and inconsequential, your attitude towards reality and dissent is alarming.
Iâve been saying gif with a soft g for over twenty years. Telling me not to is what makes English worse. As far Iâm concerned both pronunciations are valid.
In your opinion. âJiggawattâ is not a common English pronunciation outside of back to the future references at this point. People mostly settled on one over the other because it makes sense to pronounce a word a similar way to be more easily understood. Itâs not always the case, sure, but I think youâll find multiple pronunciations are the exception, not the rule. Thatâs why you can come up with a good handful of such words, but youâll be using words with single pronunciations to talk about them.
The newer pronunciation has become popular based on
The newer pronunciation has become popular based on their internalization of the obscure patterns of English pronunciation, informed by the most similar word: âgiftâ which uses a hard g. Everyone I know of started saying it with a hard g because thatâs what made sense based on the spelling, long before hearing the weird thing about constituent words.
Nobody pronounced LASER as Lah-seer, which youâd have to do if you used âA as in Amplificationâ an âE as in Emissionâ.
OK but there are other similar words that start with gi like giraffe and gigolo, but really thatâs not why I or anyone I knew in the 90s started using the soft g to say âgif.â We did so because we learned about the format, and said âNeat, whatâs it called?â and they said âitâs called a gifâ because that was the name of the format. We didnât debate the pronunciation because it had been given a name, the same way you donât ask a person you just met âShouldnât âBobâ be pronounced with a long âoâ like the very similar name âJobâ? Iâm going to call you âBobeâ because that makes more sense to me.â Youâd have to be a massive douche to say that out loud to a person who had just introduced themselves.
If someone said it with the hard âgâ we just nodded and went about our day because it doesnât matter, we knew what they probably meant and they just hadnât read the manual.
Pronunciations change over time, and thatâs good. Language is a function of communication, and better communication is what enabled humans to transfer knowledge. If someone uses the soft g, you know the word theyâre saying, and I know youâre probably not saying the word âgiftâ from context. Weâre communicating either way, and we donât have to pronounce every word the same.
Case in point, I donât say âemissionâ with a long âeâ sound, I say âehmissionâ because it doesnât matter that much.
The only way to be wrong is to claim that someone else is saying it wrong.
âNeat, whatâs it called?â and they said âitâs called a gifâ
Yeah, and then we all assumed it was pronounced âgifâ not âjifâ because the only other word with the letters âgifâ was âgiftâ and that had a hard g. Later on, someone claimed it was supposed to be pronounced âjifâ, but we all laughed at that idea and kept using the correct pronunciation.
We didnât debate the pronunciation because it had been given a name
Neither did we, it was a hard g. There was no debate. Sure, some people claimed it was supposed to be a soft g, but we all laughed at that idea because it was ridiculous.
We didnât debate the pronunciation because it had been given a name, the same way you donât ask a person you just met âShouldnât âBobâ be pronounced with a long âoâ like the very similar name âJobâ?
Iâm guessing youâre not multilingual then, because I am, and itâs extremely common to change how someoneâs name is pronounced. People with the name âDavidâ who are French are used to the French pronunciation of their name being âDah-veedâ but in English âDay-vidâ. French people pronounce âBobâ as âBubâ. Itâs good to allow people to slightly change how your name is pronounced because it flows better in their language. If they have to pause every time your name comes up to adapt how itâs said, it just makes things more difficult.
As for âgifâ, if someone pronounced it as âjifâ, we giggled a bit, but thatâs it. It was only if someone was really insistent that it had to be a soft g that we really laughed. Some people tried to claim that the creator of the format had wanted a certain pronunciation, but we knew that didnât matter.
Language is a function of communication, and better communication is what enabled humans to transfer knowledge
Exactly, and part of good communication is good pronunciation, because if you mispronounce things it makes it harder for people to understand you. If you insist on using a nonsensical pronunciation then youâre just trying to make it hard to communicate with you.
That is the most anti-linguistic take ever lmao. There is no such thing as an objectively correct pronunciation, both pronunciations of âgifâ are valid in the context of most English conversations.
On another note, the guy who created it said itâs pronounced /dÊÉȘf/, so if any pronunciation is more âcorrectâ itâs the one you hate. Itâs not âsome people tried to claimâ, thatâs what it actually is âcorrectlyâ pronounced like according to the only one that can come close to being considered an authority on what the correct pronunciation is.
Your comment being so pretentious and stuck-up about you not liking a pronunciation leads me to believe youâre making the whole âweâ thing up, and instead of a group of people being dumbasses and laughing at a correct pronunciation, it was just one person (you) malding about it in their head. Because being the kind of person to actually laugh at something like that in real life, face to face, would be too embarrassing for anyone to actually go through with it. God even just reading your comment makes me feel like Iâm looking at made-up Reddit stories againâŠ
Also how people speaking other languages handle names doesnât have anything to do with this, thereâs a big difference between calling someone âwrongâ for pronouncing a loanword differently than in the parent language because of the languagesâ phonetics & phonotactics not aligning with each other, and insisting that everyone else is âwrongâ because their completely linguistically valid, common pronunciation challenges your understanding of the language.
Oxford uses /dÊÉȘf/ as the primary pronunciation with /gif/ as the secondary in most of their resources (although a lot donât specify a primary or secondary), Dictionary.com lists /dÊÉȘf/ as the primary pronunciation, some like Merriam-Webster list both equally, Cambridge less consistent but list both. Clearly the people whoâs job is language disagree with you, even if you donât want to ask for linguists to tell you, they literally make the language references you use. If you want to be stubborn and insist on being wrong, so be it.
You can now continue malding about the fact that you use the incorrect pronunciation for the rest of your life, since apparently thatâs how you see language.
There is no such thing as an objectively correct pronunciation
But, there are patterns to the language and using a soft âgâ sound doesnât follow those patterns, so itâs objectively a less correct pronunciation.
the guy who created it
Who cares about that guy? He made a mistake, he should have looked up how words are pronounced before trying to get people to mispronounce âgifâ. If heâd said it was supposed to be pronounced âdugâ people would have just ignored him, but his attempt wasnât that absurd, it was just slightly wrong, so not everyone ignored him the way they should have.
instead of a group of people being dumbasses and laughing at a correct pronunciation
It really sounds like you didnât have friends. The rest of us did.
Also how people speaking other languages handle names doesnât have anything to do with this
Of course it does. How you pronounce things depends on the language you use. How people pronounce the letters âgifâ is based on their language. In English, itâs a hard g.
But, there are patterns to the language and using a soft âgâ sound doesnât follow those patterns, so itâs objectively a less correct pronunciation.
Who makes these mystical ârulesâ that English surely follows? And who says the patterns you see are objectively more correct, there are a ton of other words with âgâ/âgiâ that pronounce it with a /dÊ/, you have to do some real mental gymnastics to justify one of them being more correct. There is a point where you have to paint a massively arbitrary line to which patterns are more âcorrectâ, it is a completely subjective matter.
Who cares about that guy?
Heâs the only one that can be considered an authority on how the word is pronounced LMAO.
He made a mistake, he should have looked up how words are pronounced before trying to get people to mispronounce âgifâ.
Pronunciation isnât based on spelling, itâs the other way around. Writing is a tool made to accomodate language, and said writing isnât a pronunciation guide. Youâre lobotomized if you think otherwise, especially in English. But regardless, see below.
If heâd said it was supposed to be pronounced âdugâ people would have just ignored him, but his attempt wasnât that absurd, it was just slightly wrong, so not everyone ignored him the way they should have.
But he didnât pronounce it like âdugâ. He pronounced it consistently with another common 3-letter word âginâ. Is âginâ wrong now? You can cope with being wrong all you want, but it doesnât make you less wrong.
It really sounds like you didnât have friends. The rest of us did.
Yeah no that writing reads like a fake Reddit story, I refuse to believe even the dumbest teenagers would act like that.
Of course it does. How you pronounce things depends on the language you use. How people pronounce the letters âgifâ is based on their language. In English, itâs a hard g.
The English writing system isnât the English language, and the English writing system isnât consistent enough to make estimations for a pronunciation like that. The only two words in the language that contain âgifâ are âgiftâ and âfungiformâ, plus derivatives of course, the latter of which is generally, by standard, pronounced with a /dÊ/ sound. If you think thatâs enough basis to go off of to make rules for every other word containing âgifâ, and then insist that your pronunciation is âcorrectâ, thatâs a you problem.
The same goes for any language â German has mostly-consistent generalized spelling conventions for the language that approximate pronunciation, but a LOT of common words break this convention, including âgukenâ, âorangeâ, the ending â-igâ, âtoiletteâ, âvaseâ, etc. which are pronounced differently than their spelling would lead you to believe. In fact it is most common for Fremdwörter & Lehnwörter to not be spelled typically. Is every German speaker pronouncing those words wrong now? What about Italian languages, which often do the same thing but significantly more? You can look at less and less standardized languages that contain more and more irregularities, until you get to a language like English and see that the âirregularitiesâ in the writing system completely outweigh any actual âregularitiesâ you see and it becomes completely pointless to try to enforce a pronunciation based on a certain spelling. Itâs why people learning a language like English or Tibetan or even Danish will have often cite the spelling as an extreme pain point (I can corroborate the first based on my experience teaching ESL), it is an inconsistent orthography where the spelling is almost entirely dependent on the etymology or something else, rather than any current pronunciation.
Itâs also convenient how you left out the entire part about the dictionaries. Almost as if that was a silver bullet for your flawed argument and you canât acknowledge it because it would make you look too crazy. Because the people who are the most looked up on for âcorrectâ language by most English speakers say youâre wrong. Hmmm.
When you consider that a large number of words in English which are spelled the same have different pronunciations or are pronounced wildly phonemically differently by different speakers or in different dialects, like âminuteâ, âcombatâ, âperfectâ, âreadâ, âbassâ, âcloseâ, âagapeâ, âobjectâ, âsewerâ, âwindâ, âwoundâ⊠âapricotâ, âleisureâ, âoftenâ, âcrayonâ, âeitherâ, âbeenâ, âcaramelâ, âgarageâ, âyogurtâ⊠your argument about pronunciation based on âspelling rulesâ falls apart pretty quickly.
Present your argument on how English works to any linguists or even anyone who has basic knowledge of linguistics and youâll be laughed out of the room.
Heâs the only one that can be considered an authority on how the word is pronounced LMAO.
Heâs just the guy who invented the software and coined a name for it, he has no authority over how that should be pronounced. If he came up with a ridiculous pronunciation (as he did) he should be laughed at and people should use a sensible pronunciation.
Pronunciation isnât based on spelling
Of course it is. Thatâs how spelling works. In English it isnât nearly 1:1 like other languages, but spelling is very strongly tied to how a word is pronounced.
the English writing system isnât consistent enough to make estimations for a pronunciation like that
Yes, it is. Thatâs why people pronounce it with a hard âgâ, because theyâve internalized the rules for spelling vs. pronunciation in English and know that those 3 letters in that order has a hard g.
are pronounced wildly phonemically differently
There are slight differences in pronunciation, not wild differences. The differences are so slight that normally you can understand the word someone is using in another dialect without difficulty. And, in every English dialect âgiftâ has a hard g, as does âgifâ.
Yeah you see youâve omitted most of my argument because itâd be absurd to argue against. Including the part which I bolded specifically â the part about e.g. Oxford or Merriam-Webster completely disagreeing with you.
I already mentioned, there are plenty of words with âgiâ that say it /dÊ/, including things that end in â-giformâ (e.g. âspongiformâ, âfungiformâ) which has âgifâ in it. That on its own disproves your point. Youâd have to do some real mental gymnastics to justify it, like âgift is shorterâ or âonly words that start with gif countâ, which is just grasping as straws making arbitrary lines. At that point I could just say âonly 3 letter words countâ or âgift doesnât count because the syllable isnât /gÉȘf/ but /gÉȘft/ with a consonant cluster, therefore itâs invalid, only things where âgifâ represent a standalone syllable countâ or something else. Oh and by the way, some dialects like West Country pronounce gift like it were spelled âyiftâ, because using a yod is the âoriginalâ pronunciation. Since your criteria seems to be if dialects pronounce it that way, that means I can go ahead and pronounce it like âyiffâ and be correct in your eyes, no? Or, maybe, maybe, the âcorrectâ pronunciation of a word is THE MANY WAYS WHICH GROUPS CAN BE OBSERVED PRONOUNCING IT rather than some arbitrary prescriptive âcorrectâ way based on stupid and inconsistent arbitrarily made rules, and the idea of one being correct is completely subjectively defined and made up.
Also no, thatâs not âhow spelling worksâ, if it were then words like âgimbalâ wouldnât have 2 or more pronunciations (/dÊ/ vs /ÉĄ/ like in âÉĄifâ). Spelling is not tied to how language is pronounced, in English itâs roughly tied to how a few random Middle English to Early Modern English dialects spelled and pronounced it, which is extremely detached from how itâs pronounced today â most words used to have over a dozen spellings based on the writer and we created standards based off of multiple arbitrarily picked writing styles. You can pick out a few inconsistencies, but as I said the irregularities vastly outweigh the regularities. This is especially apparent when you look at words that contain strings like âghâ, âgi/ge/gy/ci/ceâ, âooâ, actually anything at all with a vowel really.
And who are you to determine what a âslightâ difference is? Itâs all subjective. Someone with a thick welsh accent, or a rural southern Irish dialect, or who speaks Scottish English, or who has a thick north Indian accent, will have a hard time being understood by the average person who speaks e.g. an accent from the west coast US or Chicago. You can find many clips online where English MPs/politicians have a considerably hard time understanding Scottish people because of the linguistic differences.
By your logic, British people pronounce âscheduleâ wrong because they generally pronounce it starting with /Ê/ (although both pronunciations are found and used), while Americans pronounce it with /sk/. I mean, who do they think they are, would you say âschoolâ like that? Or âschematicâ??? Or âschizophreniaâ! They sound like those dirty Germans, pronouncing it differently than me⊠and other words that contain âschâ but are pronounced differently donât count because⊠reasons? Theyâre way less common maybe? Thatâs how you sound right now.
In the same vain, most west Slovak speakers can understand Czech with little difficulty and vice versa. Actually Slovak speakers can interact with most slavic speakers to a good degree. By your logic, Slovak is correct Czech or Ukrainian, but Scottish English isnât correct English. HmmmâŠ
You are silly for thinking that your pronunciation is âthe correctâ pronunciation. Your pronunciation is just as absurd as any other. Also people pronounce it with /dÊ/ because it just makes sense, and it generally is more common in certain areas of the country, youâre acting like /gÉȘf/ is the pronunciation people first think when they see the word.
Also letâs use your logic on other acronyms. NASA â well clearly /nĂŠ.sÉ/ is wronÉĄ, look at the other common word containing that sequence like ânasalâ! Or how about LASER â well words like âeraserâ and âchaserâ disagree! Or yolo â âmyologyâ and âembryologyâ. OSHA â âturboshaftâ and âgoshawkâ. NATOâ âsenatorâ, âanatomyâ, âurinatoryâ, ânatomaâ. How is GIF somehow the exception to not being consistent with pronunciation of words containing the same sequence of letters? Which by the way, as I pointed out with e.g. âspongiformâ, it is, but even if you want to ignore that.
I donât even care about you addressing the rest of my previous comment, I just want you to tell me, do you really think you know better than the dictionary folks? The people whoâs job is basically deciding what is ââcorrectââ language? The prescriptive linguistic institutions?
âJifâ is the original pronunciation. It is a pun, a play on the word âjifâ short for âjiffyâ meaning a short amount of time, as in âIâll send it to you in a gifâ. The newer pronunciation has become popular based on the fallacious reasoning that an acronym should be pronounced the same as its constituent words, which isnât a thing at all.
Language evolves, and both pronunciations are common enough to be considered acceptable. The only way to be wrong about how to pronounce the word is to claim one of the pronunciations is wrong.
Become popular? Itâs been popular roughly for the lifespan of the format. Itâs hardly languageâs fault the developer wanted to make an unfunny reference to a since forgotten peanut butter slogan.
On the other hand linguistics indicate a hard g sound with the construction of the word, constituent words aside. Plenty of four letter words starting with the gi combo have a hard g, including but not limited to gift which you may notice is very similarly constructed.
Whatever else the English language may throw at us, people appreciate consistency because we can make some sense of the world. A hard g is the consistent, predictable, sensible choice for the limited availability of those virtues English offers.
There exists other words that start with gi but use the soft g, gin for example. But regardless, the pronunciation of one word is not determined by the pronunciation of other unrelated words.
In English? Yes. In other, more structured and sane languages? No.
Iâm gonna stop you there, because Iâve been using the format for about 30 years, and people only started using the new pronunciation in the last 10-15.
Everything you said about linguistics is entirely crap. English is not a proscriptive language. English linguistics doesnât indicate anything at all. It is descriptive, and is anything but consistent. There are no rules about word construction or pronunciation. Words are pronounced the way they are understood, and if you are understood then you have pronounced them correctly.
You could argue that the original pronunciation is archaic, like âencyclopaedia,â but the problem there is that the word itself is like 35 years old, and there are people like me who have been using the word since there was only one acceptable pronunciation who arenât likely to change.
Iâve been using the word since the mid 90s and itâs always been hard G for me.
I donât say that to suggest that you or anyone else are wrong to say it with a soft G (although my brain cringes each time I hear it), but since I donât think I invented the hard G pronunciation I think claiming itâs a recent thing is a fallacious argument against the hard G.
Nobody invented the mispronunciations, it just happens, which is why the manual included a guide. The inventor of the word (and the format) had to tell people how it was pronounced and why he chose the name, just like every other brand name.
What is recent is the fallacious arguments related to how acronyms are supposed to be pronounced, part of a larger trend towards obstinate and belligerent defense of an objectively and demonstrably false argument. The internet has made people feel like their opinions are just as valid as facts.
In the 90s, we nerds used technical terms like a shiboleth to separate other nerds from what the French call âles incompĂ©tents.â But itâs unlikely anyone would have corrected you back then, because doing so was considered impolite and elitist.
I see it as part of what Colbert called âtruthiness.â There is no rule for how the word should be pronounced, but it feels like there should be, which is why the argument is so often repeated. The feeling of being right is more important than the reality of ambiguity, and people seek out validation of their presuppositions. Itâs that overconfidence that fosters animosity towards debate, which is why people get so heated about silly things like this.
This is my only point:
As someone else pointed out already, this is untrue. While it may not have been popular in your circles, it definitely was in others. Iâve been saying it with a hard g as long as you have with a soft and Iâm not the originator either.
They absolutely do. Thatâs why you can sound out a word youâve never seen before. You may not always be right when you do because they indicate, they donât define.
There are, there are just exceptions. For example, an e at the end of the word is silent. Iâm certain you can give me a word where itâs not, but there are at least six in this paragraph alone where it is.
In this logic if someone has been pronouncing a word all their life with a single pronunciation and travels to another location with a much different accent they can only now be pronouncing the word wrong.
If understanding is also the only metric then a hard g would still be preferable. Not only does a written g tend to make people lean to a hard g in my experience, but thereâs more words that could be mistaken for a soft g pronunciation.
Could I not argue that the original pronunciation has fallen out of favor?
Is there a time requirement for pronunciations to become archaic?
Which isnât a time that existed, as weâve established
Given your stance on language this is absolutely a you problem. If the rest of us collectively decided to understand it as only with a hard g, you would not be understood and therefore be pronouncing it wrong by your own logic.
One of the most common words with a final âeâ in that paragraph is âtheâ which not only has a final âeâ sound, but has two different final âeâ sounds depending on the context: âthe endâ uses a /Ă°i/ pronunciation but âthe wordâ uses a /Ă°É/ pronunciation. English is very stupid.
But, I agree with your assessment. English has rules, or at least patterns. âGâ is most often hard, not soft, because âJâ is available for the soft version, but thereâs no alternative for the hard version. English tends to follow patterns, and âgiftâ has a hard g, and it (and words based on it) are the only ones that start with âgifâ, so every âgifâ word is hard. Because âtâ (unlike âeâ) canât change the sounds before it, the pattern says that âgifâ should have a hard âgâ.
If it were âgirâ, then there would be more debate. The word âgiraffeâ has a soft âgâ but âgirlâ has a hard one, so the pattern is more muddy.
Also, people who coin words donât get to decide how theyâll be pronounced. They can certainly try, but theyâll often lose. There are plenty of words in English borrowed from other languages that not only sound nothing like the original language, but that sound nothing like theyâd sound if they were English words. For example, âlingerieâ. Itâs a French word, but the English pronunciation sounds nothing like a French word. In fact, if someone just sounded out the word as if it were an English word, theyâd probably get much closer to the French pronunciation than the awful âlawn-je-rayâ which is the current accepted English pronunciation (though, theyâd probably assume a hard âgâ sound).
In this case, itâs too bad that Steve Wilhite didnât have a background in linguistics or he would have realized that people would see âgifâ and assume a hard âgâ. It was a losing fight from the start because he either didnât understand the assumptions people would have when they saw those letters, or he thought that somehow he could successfully fight the tide all by himself.
Your illustration using the word âtheâ here is awesome. Particularly the alternative pronunciations. I would also like to add the well known words âbeâ, âheâ, âsheâ and âmeâ into the mix.
What? Thatâs just a silly claim, the word âgiftâ is generally pronounced [gÉȘftÌ] with the /t/ having no release, often the last consonant isnât even perceived by speakers, if anything that is extremely easy to mix up with âgifâ using a /g/ as opposed using a /dÊ/, compared to any other words (well I guess thereâs âjifâ the peanut butter brand?). You make a bad argument.
Also yes, if someone pronounced or used a word one way and then went to some theoretical place where everyone else pronounced or used it in a way where it becomes mutually unintelligible, then yes you WOULD be saying it âwrongâ if you insisted on pronouncing it in a way nobody can decipher it, if you can call anything in language âwrongâ. French speakers canât just go say shit to Sicilian speakers and expect to be understood.
But no, there are no rules about word construction or pronunciation. The closest thing we have to ârulesâ is loose standards that people commonly us. And in the context of this conversation, most English standards donât invoke any sort of phonemic spelling like e.g. Spanish or French or Polish or Korean or whatever. There are no âspelling rulesâ that dictate that a certain sequence of letters or words has to be pronounced a certain way regardless of context, even according to standards of English. None of that âexceptionsâ bs, Modern English spelling is mostly based off of a writing system of a language that Modern English speakers wouldnât even understand, and as such there are only a few sometimes-consistencies-ish, like using certain constructs to differentiate lax vs tense vowels like doubling the following consonant letter vs appending an âeâ at the end, when applicable. Itâs just infeasible due to the history of the writing system to apply a consistent convention for phonemic spelling without reforming the entire orthography.
This is opposed to, say, French, in which standard spellings have actually consistent throughout the entire language rules for how a certain combination of letters is formally pronounced (regardless of how much French speakers like to claim their spelling is nonsense), sometimes with secondary/uncommon pronunciations, and with exceptions to those rules. And consistent rules for phenomena like liaison. And applying those rules, you can systematically pronounce a majority of words accurately even if youâve never encountered the language in your life. Hereâs a table just for fun: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_orthography#Spelling_to_sound_correspondences
This is not something you can do in English.
And even using the argument of standards, the most common descriptions of Standard English (e.g. Oxfordâs dictionaries, Merriam-Webster, AHD) all list both /gÉȘf/ and /dÊÉȘf/.
Also you claim that the latter is falling out of favor, but that seems to have come from thin air. All the resources on the matter in the first place are online polls with a small sample size and a lot of bias in terms of the location of the respondants from like a decade ago, idk how you determine that one is more popular than the other in a way other than âI hear X pronunciation more than Yâ. The fact that this argument is seen all over the internet and is extremely contentious should be proof enough to show you that that claim is fallacious.
From the top thereâs also jiff, meaning hurry. With no more effort that puts me at two and you at one, which is more as I said. Mine are also direct homophones whereas yours relies on a certain practice that I have very different experience on the frequency of than you do.
So you recognize how exceptions work but deny theyâre a part of English construction? Itâs all just barely organized chaos? Whereâs whatever amount of organization coming from if not rules that are frequently excepted?
Yes, Iâm well aware that other languages have much better structure. Iâm not sure how that means English doesnât have rules. As a kid surely between you and some friend someoneâs house had fewer rules that were less enforced. Did that mean they didnât have any rules? Of course not!
Iâll admit my falling out of favor statement isnât scientific. However if we take the other fellaâs assertation about it only being pronounced one way to begin with then itâs very much falling out of favor.
Either way Iâm not looking to start yet another branch of this argument. Least of all with someone who starts by saying English doesnât have rules with exceptions because French does.
I donât think youâve ever had a single bit of education on linguistics in your life and it shows.
Iâve never had the problem of not being understood. And regardless of how long the time period was, there was a time when one guy spoke aloud the word when he invented it. You can use the new pronunciation if you like, but I use the original, as I have for 30+ years, and I will continue to do so because both are acceptable. If you donât like it, thatâs a you problem.
You are either a uniquely spectacular communicator or a liar. Itâs not for me to say which. Regardless thatâs not the point. If you use the soft g sound and are not understood then, by your own explanation you are saying it wrong. Thatâs something you need to contend with.
So no time requirement on archaic then?
As is true of every word and yet Iâm sure there are words you say differently than the first person. Iâll bet you donât say the name of the element with the atomic number 13 the same way the man who discovered it does. Not to mention who knows how many words England took from France, mangled, and then got adjusted again in America. Who is the correct first person there, or does the first person only matter with this specific issue?
I will as well many others.
Me too! Still doesnât make yours right and mine wrong no matter how hard you try to deride it as ânewâ when itâs barely newer than the format.
I canât stop you. I can think you ridiculous for doing so but my suspicion that this would be the only reason I would think that of you diminishes with each response you send.
Perhaps, but one seems to be falling out of favor. Just like a double space after a period or writing out words greater than ten but less than one hundred.
I could call it a moving picture and not be wrong, doesnât mean people wouldnât think me weird for doing so. I would have to deal with that the way you need to deal with what your choices cause people to think of you.
Sure, but it wonât stop me from making my own conclusions just like any other thing. The same is true for all of humanity to varying degrees.
Youâre still not listening. Iâm not deriding anything, and Iâm not saying Iâm right and youâre wrong. There are two pronunciations that are both in use, and itâs objectively true that one is the original and the other is the new one. Arguing anything else is dishonest. One is not archaic, because itâs still being used.
As for what you think of me, I really donât care. Youâre trying to convince me to pronounce a product name differently than I have done my entire life when I was told by the creator of the product how to pronounce it. Iâve heard your arguments, and the only linguistically relevant argument is that everyone just started doing it. That will be a compelling argument 100 years from now, but itâs not a compelling argument to change.
You are deriding it. Is calling the chess piece a queen instead of a Vizir new? Thereâs a much bigger gap between that change than this one? Or is it not new because thatâs what you know it as?
You can hide behind whatever you want, but your âtold by the creatorâ rhetoric exposes you, even if you canât admit it to yourself.
Itâs not a compelling argument for you to change, again, because youâve decided your way is the better one. Language, much like any other form of knowledge, has been changing, evolving, and updating with increasing speed for as long as this format has been around. I bet if you think you can figure out the connection.
It may be objectively true that one is the way the creator pronounced it but, as stated, itâs also objectively true that originations donât dictate the pronunciations of words. Iâve given you plenty of ways that English does operate and how that lends itself to the hard g pronunciation as well as the fact that the so-called ânewâ pronunciation has been around nearly as long as the other one. Of course you could call that the âoldâ one, which is a more common counterpoint to new, yet you consistently choose âoriginalâ. But I guess neither of us is listening, hmm?
Whatever. Take your ball and go home and keep telling yourself you donât care while telling everyone else you do with your own choices.
You sound really upset about this. Originations, at the time of origination, is the only thing that dictates the pronunciation of a new word. We have all been âtold by the creatorâ because he wrote it down for everyone to avoid confusion. Confusion followed anyway, in part due to the absurd lies people shared online (including yourself) about non-existent rules of English linguistics. Yes, I find that annoying, but thatâs lingguistics. Things change, sometimes for stupid reasons, but that doesnât mean they havenât changed. Pointing out that the reasons are stupid is accurate, and we shouldnât pretend that they arenât stupid.
Maybe tomorrow people will start saying âgifeâ and then that will be the new pronunciation. New and old are not value judgements, they are just the reality of the passage of time and the evolution of language. If they started saying âgifeâ because they think the promunciation of acronyms is required to change every 15 years, then that would also be a stupid reason to change. Itâs still a new pronunciation, and then there would be three acceptable pronunciations of the word.
I am listening to you, you just arenât saying anything of value. Youâre attacking me because you donât like that I havenât adopted your preferred pronunciation of a word. You donât like me because I havenât changed to fit your preference. I donât care about you, because youâre the sort of person who makes value judgements about a person based on their pronunciations of a word. Your entire argument is that I should change because you donât like the way I talk. Iâm not asking you to change the way you talk. Iâm pointing out the flaw in your thinking, and asking you to think for yourself. Donât listen to internet experts who make shit up. Thatâs a path to ruin, and while weâre talking about something silly and inconsequential, your attitude towards reality and dissent is alarming.
Jift.
Yep. Jiffy is only used for peanut butter. Great point!
You can find plenty of places where the claim is that itâs a soft g because âchoosey devs choose gifâ.
Where jiffy is used is irrelevant in that case.
Itâs been popular in use but casual everyday people werenât always bringing them up in conversation.
English is not consistent, accept that. You can say gif but Iâll continue to call it gif.
This is the real answer. Both are correct and thatâs that. It can be gif as in image, or gif as in graphic.
That doesnât mean we have an ehxcuse to haje jt worse
Iâve been saying gif with a soft g for over twenty years. Telling me not to is what makes English worse. As far Iâm concerned both pronunciations are valid.
In your opinion. âJiggawattâ is not a common English pronunciation outside of back to the future references at this point. People mostly settled on one over the other because it makes sense to pronounce a word a similar way to be more easily understood. Itâs not always the case, sure, but I think youâll find multiple pronunciations are the exception, not the rule. Thatâs why you can come up with a good handful of such words, but youâll be using words with single pronunciations to talk about them.
Itâs Gif and I donât care what anyone says
I donât care either. Now excuse me while I go gerk off.
Dijusting.
Oh yeah well I say drink more Ovaltine
The approximately equal amount of upvotes and downvotes this comment received pretty much sums up the entire gif wars.
The newer pronunciation has become popular based on their internalization of the obscure patterns of English pronunciation, informed by the most similar word: âgiftâ which uses a hard g. Everyone I know of started saying it with a hard g because thatâs what made sense based on the spelling, long before hearing the weird thing about constituent words.
Nobody pronounced LASER as Lah-seer, which youâd have to do if you used âA as in Amplificationâ an âE as in Emissionâ.
OK but there are other similar words that start with gi like giraffe and gigolo, but really thatâs not why I or anyone I knew in the 90s started using the soft g to say âgif.â We did so because we learned about the format, and said âNeat, whatâs it called?â and they said âitâs called a gifâ because that was the name of the format. We didnât debate the pronunciation because it had been given a name, the same way you donât ask a person you just met âShouldnât âBobâ be pronounced with a long âoâ like the very similar name âJobâ? Iâm going to call you âBobeâ because that makes more sense to me.â Youâd have to be a massive douche to say that out loud to a person who had just introduced themselves.
If someone said it with the hard âgâ we just nodded and went about our day because it doesnât matter, we knew what they probably meant and they just hadnât read the manual.
Pronunciations change over time, and thatâs good. Language is a function of communication, and better communication is what enabled humans to transfer knowledge. If someone uses the soft g, you know the word theyâre saying, and I know youâre probably not saying the word âgiftâ from context. Weâre communicating either way, and we donât have to pronounce every word the same.
Case in point, I donât say âemissionâ with a long âeâ sound, I say âehmissionâ because it doesnât matter that much.
The only way to be wrong is to claim that someone else is saying it wrong.
Yeah, and then we all assumed it was pronounced âgifâ not âjifâ because the only other word with the letters âgifâ was âgiftâ and that had a hard g. Later on, someone claimed it was supposed to be pronounced âjifâ, but we all laughed at that idea and kept using the correct pronunciation.
Neither did we, it was a hard g. There was no debate. Sure, some people claimed it was supposed to be a soft g, but we all laughed at that idea because it was ridiculous.
Iâm guessing youâre not multilingual then, because I am, and itâs extremely common to change how someoneâs name is pronounced. People with the name âDavidâ who are French are used to the French pronunciation of their name being âDah-veedâ but in English âDay-vidâ. French people pronounce âBobâ as âBubâ. Itâs good to allow people to slightly change how your name is pronounced because it flows better in their language. If they have to pause every time your name comes up to adapt how itâs said, it just makes things more difficult.
As for âgifâ, if someone pronounced it as âjifâ, we giggled a bit, but thatâs it. It was only if someone was really insistent that it had to be a soft g that we really laughed. Some people tried to claim that the creator of the format had wanted a certain pronunciation, but we knew that didnât matter.
Exactly, and part of good communication is good pronunciation, because if you mispronounce things it makes it harder for people to understand you. If you insist on using a nonsensical pronunciation then youâre just trying to make it hard to communicate with you.
That is the most anti-linguistic take ever lmao. There is no such thing as an objectively correct pronunciation, both pronunciations of âgifâ are valid in the context of most English conversations.
On another note, the guy who created it said itâs pronounced /dÊÉȘf/, so if any pronunciation is more âcorrectâ itâs the one you hate. Itâs not âsome people tried to claimâ, thatâs what it actually is âcorrectlyâ pronounced like according to the only one that can come close to being considered an authority on what the correct pronunciation is.
Your comment being so pretentious and stuck-up about you not liking a pronunciation leads me to believe youâre making the whole âweâ thing up, and instead of a group of people being dumbasses and laughing at a correct pronunciation, it was just one person (you) malding about it in their head. Because being the kind of person to actually laugh at something like that in real life, face to face, would be too embarrassing for anyone to actually go through with it. God even just reading your comment makes me feel like Iâm looking at made-up Reddit stories againâŠ
Also how people speaking other languages handle names doesnât have anything to do with this, thereâs a big difference between calling someone âwrongâ for pronouncing a loanword differently than in the parent language because of the languagesâ phonetics & phonotactics not aligning with each other, and insisting that everyone else is âwrongâ because their completely linguistically valid, common pronunciation challenges your understanding of the language.
Oxford uses /dÊÉȘf/ as the primary pronunciation with /gif/ as the secondary in most of their resources (although a lot donât specify a primary or secondary), Dictionary.com lists /dÊÉȘf/ as the primary pronunciation, some like Merriam-Webster list both equally, Cambridge less consistent but list both. Clearly the people whoâs job is language disagree with you, even if you donât want to ask for linguists to tell you, they literally make the language references you use. If you want to be stubborn and insist on being wrong, so be it.
You can now continue malding about the fact that you use the incorrect pronunciation for the rest of your life, since apparently thatâs how you see language.
But, there are patterns to the language and using a soft âgâ sound doesnât follow those patterns, so itâs objectively a less correct pronunciation.
Who cares about that guy? He made a mistake, he should have looked up how words are pronounced before trying to get people to mispronounce âgifâ. If heâd said it was supposed to be pronounced âdugâ people would have just ignored him, but his attempt wasnât that absurd, it was just slightly wrong, so not everyone ignored him the way they should have.
It really sounds like you didnât have friends. The rest of us did.
Of course it does. How you pronounce things depends on the language you use. How people pronounce the letters âgifâ is based on their language. In English, itâs a hard g.
Who makes these mystical ârulesâ that English surely follows? And who says the patterns you see are objectively more correct, there are a ton of other words with âgâ/âgiâ that pronounce it with a /dÊ/, you have to do some real mental gymnastics to justify one of them being more correct. There is a point where you have to paint a massively arbitrary line to which patterns are more âcorrectâ, it is a completely subjective matter.
Heâs the only one that can be considered an authority on how the word is pronounced LMAO.
Pronunciation isnât based on spelling, itâs the other way around. Writing is a tool made to accomodate language, and said writing isnât a pronunciation guide. Youâre lobotomized if you think otherwise, especially in English. But regardless, see below.
But he didnât pronounce it like âdugâ. He pronounced it consistently with another common 3-letter word âginâ. Is âginâ wrong now? You can cope with being wrong all you want, but it doesnât make you less wrong.
Yeah no that writing reads like a fake Reddit story, I refuse to believe even the dumbest teenagers would act like that.
The English writing system isnât the English language, and the English writing system isnât consistent enough to make estimations for a pronunciation like that. The only two words in the language that contain âgifâ are âgiftâ and âfungiformâ, plus derivatives of course, the latter of which is generally, by standard, pronounced with a /dÊ/ sound. If you think thatâs enough basis to go off of to make rules for every other word containing âgifâ, and then insist that your pronunciation is âcorrectâ, thatâs a you problem.
The same goes for any language â German has mostly-consistent generalized spelling conventions for the language that approximate pronunciation, but a LOT of common words break this convention, including âgukenâ, âorangeâ, the ending â-igâ, âtoiletteâ, âvaseâ, etc. which are pronounced differently than their spelling would lead you to believe. In fact it is most common for Fremdwörter & Lehnwörter to not be spelled typically. Is every German speaker pronouncing those words wrong now? What about Italian languages, which often do the same thing but significantly more? You can look at less and less standardized languages that contain more and more irregularities, until you get to a language like English and see that the âirregularitiesâ in the writing system completely outweigh any actual âregularitiesâ you see and it becomes completely pointless to try to enforce a pronunciation based on a certain spelling. Itâs why people learning a language like English or Tibetan or even Danish will have often cite the spelling as an extreme pain point (I can corroborate the first based on my experience teaching ESL), it is an inconsistent orthography where the spelling is almost entirely dependent on the etymology or something else, rather than any current pronunciation.
Itâs also convenient how you left out the entire part about the dictionaries. Almost as if that was a silver bullet for your flawed argument and you canât acknowledge it because it would make you look too crazy. Because the people who are the most looked up on for âcorrectâ language by most English speakers say youâre wrong. Hmmm.
When you consider that a large number of words in English which are spelled the same have different pronunciations or are pronounced wildly phonemically differently by different speakers or in different dialects, like âminuteâ, âcombatâ, âperfectâ, âreadâ, âbassâ, âcloseâ, âagapeâ, âobjectâ, âsewerâ, âwindâ, âwoundâ⊠âapricotâ, âleisureâ, âoftenâ, âcrayonâ, âeitherâ, âbeenâ, âcaramelâ, âgarageâ, âyogurtâ⊠your argument about pronunciation based on âspelling rulesâ falls apart pretty quickly.
Present your argument on how English works to any linguists or even anyone who has basic knowledge of linguistics and youâll be laughed out of the room.
Heâs just the guy who invented the software and coined a name for it, he has no authority over how that should be pronounced. If he came up with a ridiculous pronunciation (as he did) he should be laughed at and people should use a sensible pronunciation.
Of course it is. Thatâs how spelling works. In English it isnât nearly 1:1 like other languages, but spelling is very strongly tied to how a word is pronounced.
Yes, it is. Thatâs why people pronounce it with a hard âgâ, because theyâve internalized the rules for spelling vs. pronunciation in English and know that those 3 letters in that order has a hard g.
There are slight differences in pronunciation, not wild differences. The differences are so slight that normally you can understand the word someone is using in another dialect without difficulty. And, in every English dialect âgiftâ has a hard g, as does âgifâ.
Yeah you see youâve omitted most of my argument because itâd be absurd to argue against. Including the part which I bolded specifically â the part about e.g. Oxford or Merriam-Webster completely disagreeing with you.
I already mentioned, there are plenty of words with âgiâ that say it /dÊ/, including things that end in â-giformâ (e.g. âspongiformâ, âfungiformâ) which has âgifâ in it. That on its own disproves your point. Youâd have to do some real mental gymnastics to justify it, like âgift is shorterâ or âonly words that start with gif countâ, which is just grasping as straws making arbitrary lines. At that point I could just say âonly 3 letter words countâ or âgift doesnât count because the syllable isnât /gÉȘf/ but /gÉȘft/ with a consonant cluster, therefore itâs invalid, only things where âgifâ represent a standalone syllable countâ or something else. Oh and by the way, some dialects like West Country pronounce gift like it were spelled âyiftâ, because using a yod is the âoriginalâ pronunciation. Since your criteria seems to be if dialects pronounce it that way, that means I can go ahead and pronounce it like âyiffâ and be correct in your eyes, no? Or, maybe, maybe, the âcorrectâ pronunciation of a word is THE MANY WAYS WHICH GROUPS CAN BE OBSERVED PRONOUNCING IT rather than some arbitrary prescriptive âcorrectâ way based on stupid and inconsistent arbitrarily made rules, and the idea of one being correct is completely subjectively defined and made up.
Also no, thatâs not âhow spelling worksâ, if it were then words like âgimbalâ wouldnât have 2 or more pronunciations (/dÊ/ vs /ÉĄ/ like in âÉĄifâ). Spelling is not tied to how language is pronounced, in English itâs roughly tied to how a few random Middle English to Early Modern English dialects spelled and pronounced it, which is extremely detached from how itâs pronounced today â most words used to have over a dozen spellings based on the writer and we created standards based off of multiple arbitrarily picked writing styles. You can pick out a few inconsistencies, but as I said the irregularities vastly outweigh the regularities. This is especially apparent when you look at words that contain strings like âghâ, âgi/ge/gy/ci/ceâ, âooâ, actually anything at all with a vowel really.
And who are you to determine what a âslightâ difference is? Itâs all subjective. Someone with a thick welsh accent, or a rural southern Irish dialect, or who speaks Scottish English, or who has a thick north Indian accent, will have a hard time being understood by the average person who speaks e.g. an accent from the west coast US or Chicago. You can find many clips online where English MPs/politicians have a considerably hard time understanding Scottish people because of the linguistic differences.
By your logic, British people pronounce âscheduleâ wrong because they generally pronounce it starting with /Ê/ (although both pronunciations are found and used), while Americans pronounce it with /sk/. I mean, who do they think they are, would you say âschoolâ like that? Or âschematicâ??? Or âschizophreniaâ! They sound like those dirty Germans, pronouncing it differently than me⊠and other words that contain âschâ but are pronounced differently donât count because⊠reasons? Theyâre way less common maybe? Thatâs how you sound right now.
In the same vain, most west Slovak speakers can understand Czech with little difficulty and vice versa. Actually Slovak speakers can interact with most slavic speakers to a good degree. By your logic, Slovak is correct Czech or Ukrainian, but Scottish English isnât correct English. HmmmâŠ
You are silly for thinking that your pronunciation is âthe correctâ pronunciation. Your pronunciation is just as absurd as any other. Also people pronounce it with /dÊ/ because it just makes sense, and it generally is more common in certain areas of the country, youâre acting like /gÉȘf/ is the pronunciation people first think when they see the word.
Also letâs use your logic on other acronyms. NASA â well clearly /nĂŠ.sÉ/ is wronÉĄ, look at the other common word containing that sequence like ânasalâ! Or how about LASER â well words like âeraserâ and âchaserâ disagree! Or yolo â âmyologyâ and âembryologyâ. OSHA â âturboshaftâ and âgoshawkâ. NATOâ âsenatorâ, âanatomyâ, âurinatoryâ, ânatomaâ. How is GIF somehow the exception to not being consistent with pronunciation of words containing the same sequence of letters? Which by the way, as I pointed out with e.g. âspongiformâ, it is, but even if you want to ignore that.
I donât even care about you addressing the rest of my previous comment, I just want you to tell me, do you really think you know better than the dictionary folks? The people whoâs job is basically deciding what is ââcorrectââ language? The prescriptive linguistic institutions?