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Peanut Butter maker weighs in on the GIF vs JIF debate

by 7 Comments

#JifvsGif is a debate long-held in the photographic community, but did you ever think a Peanut Butter company would get involved? J. M. Smucker Company, the maker of Jif Peanut Butter, has teamed up with Giphy, the GIF hosting company. The same company we all use to place our ‘Oh no she didn’t!’ GIF’s on Facebook, in an attempt to gather the world’s opinions on the matter.

But what is the actual issue here? Well, it’s the pronunciation. Should it be pronounced with a hard G, as in Gate? Or is it a soft G, as in Gem? Perhaps the issue comes with language – take the word ‘Garage,’ for instance, where both apply!

 

The (at time of writing, sold out) jars of Jif Peanut Butter adorned with the Giphy affiliated ‘Gif’ label are available on Amazon. The label even has a pronunciation guide on it! The website explains, ‘Jif is peanut butter. GIFs are looping animations.’ Steve Wilhite, who created the GIF file format in 1987, once told the New York Times that it’s pronounced ‘jif’ not ‘gif.’ If you’re interested, it stands for Graphics Interface Format.

Will we actually solve this issue? Should we simply be happy that we have another way to look at kittens on the internet? Perhaps we need to agree to disagree.

Related posts:

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About David Williams

Dave is a travel photographer and writer, and photography and Photoshop instructor, from the UK. Find Dave at idavewilliams.com or @idavewilliams on all platforms.

  • Hard g as in “gate” or soft g as in “gem”.
    Am I missing something or isn’t the backwards?

  • I say “gif” with a hard G, because that way people know what I’m referring to.

  • 🤔 OMG… I never thought about how would sound this word. I always said like go, good, get…. Gif!

  • Let me put it like this:

    I spoke to Gennifer about that and jenerally she thinks gust for now, because she’s a jraphic designer she knows how to pronounce it. She paints Jiraffes for a living.

    All kidding aside, the inventory claims it should be pronounced Jiff which is super odd because you don’t say Jraphic!

  • eljay

    “Steve Wilhite, who created the GIF file format in 1987, once told the New York Times that it’s pronounced ‘jif’ not ‘gif.’”

    Case closed.

  • Планетянин Землянин

    Graphics Interface Format. Graphics! It is obvious. Be Russian/German/etc. and no problem. GIF like in “graphics”.

  • What? There is actually a debate about this? If it stands for “Graphics Interface Format”, how TF can it be pronounced “JIF”

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