GIF (Graphics Interchange Format) is an acronym and therefore pronounced as a single word rather than an initialism which is spoken as individual letters. For English speakers, GIF would pronounced phonetically with a hard "G" sound as in the word "go". Pronouncing it with the variant "g" sound where it mimics a "j" is phonetically incorrect, but the language rules and borrowed words problem in modern English leads some to pronounce the "g" sound like that in "giraffe". Additonally, the "G" stands for the word "graphics" which is pronounced with a hard "g" sound and therefore should remain the starting sound in GIF. Saying "JIF" is incorrect grammatically but socially debatable due to the many quirks and intricacies in the English language. Even if the person who named GIF says "JIF", the rules still apply and they are wrong if they insist it is an acronym rather than a made up word used in place of an acronym.
TL;DR: English is hard, but "JIF" is grammatically wrong.
Agree with you, was just thinking about this because... because, and thought of GUI where EVERYBODY pronounces it correctly - Gooey - and GIF also starts (G)raphical. But if it's truly jif then GUI is jewy...
Graphics starts with a hard G, therefore GIF does. If it were say Giraffe Interchange Format, "J"IF would be proper.
Graphics starts with a hard G, therefore GIF does. If it were say Giraffe Interchange Format, "J"IF would be proper.
Complicating the matter further, there is such a thing as a "JIF" file format. That one would be allowed to have the "J" or soft "G" sound since the J stands for "Joint". JIF/JIFF are archaic now and replaced by the widely accepted JPEG format instead so it's probably not so confounding in modern use.
A Giraffe Interchange Format sounds like something that needs to exist. Giraffes need to interchange data too.
A JIF file, often referring to the JPEG Interchange Format or the related JPEG File Interchange Format (JFIF), is an image format that contains compressed photographic data. Primarily used as an early, basic version of JPEG, JIF files contain a header with image specifications (dimensions, color depth) and the pixel
JIF/JIFF are archaic now and replaced by the widely accepted JPEG format
Too bad. IFF was a good file format that made it easy for programs to add extra data without breaking reading on other programs. AIFF, TIFF, RIFF, AVI all were based on it. I can't tell whether JIF was. Looks like a mess of formats for JPEG (en.wikipedia.org) (JIF, JFIF, and EXIF, and a combo of the last two).