The Great GIF Debate

When a new internet word strolls into public consciousness, people seem to tread lightly when they use it out in the wild. Think about the first time you heard the word "meme"...by the time you hear your mom stating how funny that cat "me-me" was, things start to get out of hand and thus unnecessary debates are formed over who is right. The fact of the matter is that no one really has the right answer until the community decides on a colloquial understanding on how to say it. Unfortunately coming to an agreement isn't always the easiest thing to do.

One of the longest ongoing and extremely unnecessary arguments is over the pronunciation of those silly animated images you see on the web all the time. The Graphics Interchange Format, or GIFs as they're better known, have been around technically since the late 80's, but they haven't waned in popularity thanks to sites like Tumblr and Buzzfeed (who just blatantly rips off Tumblr). Now that your grandparents have finally found out about the dancing baby, the great debate is whether you pronounce it GIF or JIF. This is almost as monotonous as way you place your toilet paper.

Recently Steve Wilhite, the inventor of the GIF, decided to settle the debate once and for all...while he was accepting a lifetime achievement award at the 17th Webby Awards, the disgruntled Wilhite stated “The Oxford English Dictionary accepts both pronunciations...They are wrong. It is a soft ‘G,’ pronounced ‘jif.’ End of story.”  Apparently "choosy developers choose GIF."

Despite this statement the internet is still at war, because if there's anything the internet is good at, it's providing a sounding board to tell people that they're wrong. Jif peanut butter on the other hand is loving the new found attention. What's your take on this? Is it GIF as in gift or jif as in the peanut butter?...Or is this all just extremely pointless.