GIF vs. JIF: You're Probably Still Saying It Wrong

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By Samantha Murphy Kelly2014-07-16 20:51:13 UTC

There's no word at the center of a pronunciation debate quite like "

The term stands for Graphics Interchange Format, which are image files that create an animated effect when used in a sequence. You've probably seen GIFs more times they you can count.

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But how you say the term has been hotly contested for years. Because “G” in GIF stands for “graphics,” common linguistics would indicate the word is said with a "g" sound. But its creator Steve Wilhite infamously opposes that stance: it's JIF, like the peanut butter, he says.

While accepting a lifetime achievement award for his creation in 2013, Wilhite wasn't shy about setting the record straight with a projection speech that set the Internet ablaze: "It's pronounced JIF, not GIF."

Wilhite developed the GIF in 1987 while he was working at CompuServe, the nation’s first major online service. The company wanted a way to show color weather maps, but didn’t want it to take up too much bandwidth for dial-up connections, according to the New York Times. Instead, he wanted to program an animated image that would convey the same message. The first GIF he ever made was a picture of an airplane.

The GIF celebrated its 25th anniversary in 2012, the same year GIF was crowned "Word of the Year" by the Oxford American Dictionary – which, by the way, accepts both pronunciations.

So technically, you can say it however you’d like, but to quote Wilhite, remember: Choosy programmers choose GIF.

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