Jod made the Jiraffes and the Giraffes and they were best friends. But then one Jiraffe found God and he spited Jod and all the Giraffes with all his might.
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I think I get the gist of this.
There's already a file format by the name .jif!
Given that there’s also a .jif format, the J pronunciation makes even less sense.
You understand it actually is pronounced jif right?
it's pronounced jod right
I dunno about that, but seems like a lot of people aren't aware of the intended pronunciation.
and the beautiful thing is, language does not work that way.
I'm not sure what you mean. Are you some sort of cunning linguist?
a sort. you can intend people to use a word you made up or pronounce it a certain way, but how it's used or pronounced is how it's going to be in the language regardless of its creator's intent.
Language is not completely a democratic process. A 30:70 split on pronunciation doesn't indicate that one version is going to fade into oblivion. Pronunciation can evolve but so can definition. The word "literally" no longer means what it used to mean in common vernacular. Not everyone should be expected to accept these majority trends though. Many of us still want "literally" to preserve its original definition for example.
The letter 's' was added to "Island" as a stylistic choice in order to make a word that has no Latin root appear more Latin. Do you go around telling people "the intended spelling is eyland"?
The fact that you had to spell it wrong to communicate the "proper" pronouciation is not a good sign for your argument.
There is a whole famous book where words are spelled funny so that people understand how to pronounce them.
So we agree "jif" is not an intuitive pronouciation.
No. It's ambiguous, hence the confusion. Just today actually I had a German guy asking me about GHAR-EE-man-dering actually!
"Someone else intuitively used a hard 'g' for a different word" is not the argument you think it is.
Did you understand what they were asking about?
They were trying to ask about gerrymandering. It's a hot topic in American politics right now, but it's something that has been used similarly in other places as well so it's worth being familiar with.
I sorry if you like hard Gs better. When you invent a technology and acronym for it and publically write and announce how it's pronounced, I promise I'll respect that too.
They were trying to ask about gerrymandering
I know. I understood what they were trying to ask clearly from the phonetics they used. Did you?
My point here is what do you think the purpose of language is?
Is the purpose of language for people to "own" words and they can dictate how they are used?
Is the purpose to gatekeep communication and stop conversations if the language is not used "properly" or "as intended"?
Or is the purpose to communicate ideas, and as long as the idea is communicated efficiently the purpose of language has been served even if the usage is slightly different?
Aluminum has two very different common pronunciations and I understand both just fine. I don't feel the need to tell people "actually it's pronounced aluminum."
Sure. But context matters right? I also wouldn't correct someone if they said sontimeters instead of cenimeters, but if it was a specific conversation explicitly about how to say centimeters, I might chime in with an opinion and some historical facts right?
I start pronouncing it yiff whenever someone complains. Eventually they beg me to say it how I want to say it.
Yes, but how would Jod pronounce PNG?
I always felt like this was a weird argument. Language is always in flux. It's why the definition of "literally" now includes a definition that it's a synonym of "figuratively" since people used it that was so much.
If enough people think gif should be pronounced like "god", then it should. If the "jif" pronunciation has enough people who use it, then that's valid, too. Hell, if a bunch of people started legitimately saying it should be a homonym with the word "plankton," even that'd be valid.
Words are about conveying meaning; the same meaning is intended with both pronunciations, and understood by the people hearing it. There's nothing to argue about.
the "literally means figuratively now" argument is stupid, saying it in non literal scenarios is used as hyperbole. You would never say "I'm figuratively dying of thirst"
I have literally said "I'm figuratively dying of thirst" but im also a massive smart ass.
I wasn't trying to discredit the validity of its use, I was trying to say that it's valid specifically because it's used. It doesn't matter if you want to say "I'm figuratively dying of thirst." or "I'm literally dying of thirst." since they convey the same meaning, and are interpreted as such by the listener.
Yeah, I dont care how people pronounce it. It's when people get serious and militant on how it should be pronounced where I just laugh at them.
I think most people who argue this either way aren't actually serious about it. You do have solid points, however.
Regardless, I will continue to argue about this point (opposite of whatever side whoever I'm talking to is taking) until it feels more annoying than fun to me.
Gif is a proper noun and a computer product. It’s not a simple word like “arse”. This would be like people saying Nike should be pronounced “Nick” and the company “Nike” is yelling “no it’s Nike! Like the god!” And people are just like, “nah I don’t care what you want your company to be called, I’m calling it something else.”
There exist countries where Nike rhymes with the name Mike in their language. I'm unwilling to tell people they're not allowed to pronounce it the way their majority does.
We’ve solidly been talking about English this whole time, since the entire basis for the pronunciation is that it’s a play on an English advertisement “choosy developers choose gif”. I’m not going to argue with other languages. Just like with the dude that is pulling out Ancient Greek, if anyone still speaks that they yeah they can pronounce Nike differently, otherwise it’s a translation to English.
Even English doesn't have one size fits all rules. Language is social and regional. If one English speaking country pronounces zebra as "zee-bra" and another pronounces it as "zeh-bra" they're both right.
In English the word "Island" has an 's' in it. This was originally done by someone purposely adding the 's' to make the word look more Latin, even though the English word "eiland" has no Latin root.
So if the original intended usage matters I hope you also correct everyone who uses "island" and tell them "you know it's spelled eiland right?"
Island isn’t a proper noun, nor a product.
Neither is .gif, it's a file type. Demonstrated by the fact that you haven't capitalized it in any of your posts.
Proper nouns have no requirement to be capitalized in modern English. It’s a proper noun and a product.
If enough people pronounce it differently, then it's a valid way to pronounce it.
It doesn't matter if it's a proper noun, the word is still meant to convey meaning and as long as it effectively does that for the population in general, it's valid.
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