Originally published at: Stephen Wilhite, the creator of the GIF, has passed away | Boing Boing
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“The Oxford English Dictionary accepts both pronunciations,” Mr. Wilhite said to The New York Times. “They are wrong. It is a soft ‘G,’ pronounced ‘jif.’ End of story.”
ETA: Oops, @jlw already covered that.
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Well, that settles it.
Pretty amazing that the simple, antiquated 256 color maximum file format has stayed relevant for so many years. Creating them used to be an art to try to squeeze less than horrific color out of it using custom palettes. - the format was pressed into service for all sorts of applications, including to create animated advertising graphics for the ATMs for nationwide bank systems.
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Wilhite pronounced it “JIF.”
He’s still wrong. It’s not peanut butter.
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RIP.
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Only if “graphical” is pronounced “Giraffical”.
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The real question is whether the Guardian capitalizes the whole acronym or not.
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Well jood for him.
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No one can stop you from mispronouncing ‘GIF’ now!
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He’s off to the Big Server in the sky.
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Magic, peanut butter.
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Wilhite stated that the intended pronunciation deliberately echoes the American JIF, and CompuServe employees would often quip “choosy developers choose GIF”, a spoof of Jif’s television commercials.
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