Newsweek declares it GIF with a hard G and has a linguistics professor to back them up. Mental Floss wades into the debate with the help of a linguistics professor for a comprehensive analysis, ultimately deciding that both sides are correct and that the g in GIF “really can go either way.” July 2016: That’s why when everyone comes across the word for the first time, they use a hard G.” August 2015: “It’s the most natural, logical way to pronounce it. August 2014:ĭesigner Aaron Bazinet launches website,, arguing for the hard g pronunciation. June 2014:Ī survey of more than 1,000 Americans were asked whether they “pronounce GIF as ‘jiff’ or ’gift‘” and “‘gift’ handily beat ‘jiff,‘ nearly 54% to 41%.” It was conduced by eBay Deals and a digital marketing agency. President Barack Obama chooses a side, announcing his “official position” is that it is pronounced GIF with a hard g like grape.

Smucker Company, which owns Jif, agreed with Wilhite’s pronunciation, tweeting, ”It’s pronounced JIF”. “Pffffffffffffff,” posted one “Graphics Interchange Format. Gizmodo declared him “wrong” and Twitter filled with people expressing their disagreement. Many people on the internet disagree with Wilhite. It is a soft ‘G,’ pronounced ‘jif.’ End of story.” But it’s not so simple. “The Oxford English Dictionary accepts both pronunciations,” Wilhite told The New York Times. “It’s pronounced JIF, not GIF.” Just like the peanut butter. Wilhite receives a Lifetime Achievement Award at the Webby Awards and used his platform to make his declaration. The White House announces its new Tumblr page where, according to New York magazine, it threw down the pronunciation gauntlet with an illustration that told visitors to the page that they can expect “ANIMATED GIFs (‘HARD G’).” This was the same year that we got GIPHY, a GIF database people could search for the GIFs they wanted.

Family guy press the red button gif