Talk:Pronunciation of GIF

ayy

@Kavyansh.Singh and Jochem van Hees: could yall cool it with the minor editing? I was really hoping to complete bilorv's challenge to get this to GA in under 50 total edits... twould be quite appreciated if you feel so inclined :) of course, I don't own the page, but y'know theleekycauldron (talk • contribs) (they/she) 10:57, 24 December 2021 (UTC)

Oh haha, sorry :D. As far as I can tell there isn't anything left to improve though. ―Jochem van Hees (talk) 11:06, 24 December 2021 (UTC)

Oh sure, I agree with the above comment; its a nice article. Its amazing how few challenges can really motivate a person. I am trying to do 'Wall-to-wall coverage', but its awfully difficult. – Kavyansh.Singh (talk) 11:35, 24 December 2021 (UTC)

oooof theleekycauldron (talk • contribs) (they/she) 00:20, 27 December 2021 (UTC)

Did you know nomination

The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by Vaticidalprophet (talk) 14:37, 3 December 2021 (UTC)

(

• Comment or view
• Article history

)

• ... that it's pronounced "gif", not "gif"?
  • ALT0a: ... that whether it's pronounced "gif" or "gif" is hotly contested?
  • ALT1: ... that the creator of the GIF file format says that it should be pronounced "jif"? Source: https://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/05/23/battle-over-gif-pronunciation-erupts/

• Reviewed: Jacob Wohl
• Comment: this was a fun one! I strongly prefer ALT0 or ALT0a for their quirkiness, but ALT1 is fine, I guess.

Created by Theleekycauldron (talk). Self-nominated at 03:58, 29 November 2021 (UTC).

General: Article is new enough and long enough
New enough: Long enough:

Policy: Article is sourced, neutral, and free of copyright problems
Adequate sourcing: Neutral: Free of copyright violations, plagiarism, and close paraphrasing:

Hook: Hook has been verified by provided inline citation
Cited: Interesting:

QPQ: Done.

Overall: Absolutely fantastic. I was initially unsure about ALT0 and ALT0a, but as I tried to type out some alternate suggestions, I realized that they were really the same as yours with the only difference being that yours poke fun at the ambiguity of the pronunciation of "gi" for some extra quirk. While the sources don't do that as far as I saw, I think it's well within the letter and spirit of DYK, since playing with words is definitely a part of what we do here. I feel fairly comfortable approving this nomination. ezlev (user/tlk/ctrbs) 06:18, 30 November 2021 (UTC)

• Thanks for the speedy review! I'm glad you're on board with the ALT0s :) theleekycauldron (talk • contribs) (they/them) 06:20, 30 November 2021 (UTC)

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Pronunciation of GIF/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Gug01 (talk · contribs) 00:54, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

Hello! I'm Gug01 and will be reviewing your article! Gug01 (talk) 00:54, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

thanks so much! with the backlog of this size, i was worried I'd be waiting forever... theleekycauldron (talk • contribs) (they/she) 01:34, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

@Theleekycauldron: Other than one or two small edits I asked for, we're basically done and this article is about to be passed! This has been my shortest GA review ever; I normally carry out reviews that drag on for weeks, months, or even entire seasons. I guess since the article's topic is relatively limited and you did a really good job covering it, there's just not much for me to add, at least in terms of GA-quality. Also, thanks for teaching me the "yo" template! Gug01 (talk) 03:11, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

@Gug01: hehehe, i love the "yo" template—you're absolutely welcome, and thank you for the review! I'm glad this one was relatively speedy, too—i've seen the GAs that drag on forever, they ain't pretty. theleekycauldron (talk • contribs) (they/she) 03:14, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

Rate	Attribute	Review Comment
1. Well-written:
	1a. the prose is clear, concise, and understandable to an appropriately broad audience; spelling and grammar are correct.
	1b. it complies with the Manual of Style guidelines for lead sections, layout, words to watch, fiction, and list incorporation.
2. Verifiable with no original research:
	2a. it contains a list of all references (sources of information), presented in accordance with the layout style guideline.
	2b. reliable sources are cited inline. All content that could reasonably be challenged, except for plot summaries and that which summarizes cited content elsewhere in the article, must be cited no later than the end of the paragraph (or line if the content is not in prose).
	2c. it contains no original research.
	2d. it contains no copyright violations or plagiarism.
3. Broad in its coverage:
	3a. it addresses the main aspects of the topic.
	3b. it stays focused on the topic without going into unnecessary detail (see summary style).
	4. Neutral: it represents viewpoints fairly and without editorial bias, giving due weight to each.
	5. Stable: it does not change significantly from day to day because of an ongoing edit war or content dispute.	Article had old edit wars which have since subsided.
6. Illustrated, if possible, by media such as images, video, or audio:
	6a. media are tagged with their copyright statuses, and valid non-free use rationales are provided for non-free content.	Copyright great!
	6b. media are relevant to the topic, and have suitable captions.	Pictures are extremely well-chosen! Good finds!
	7. Overall assessment.

Lead

No comments here; this is great! I'm surprised the topic is notable for an article; but others have already determined to be the case, and my only role is to assess its quality. Gug01 (talk) 01:12, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

Background

"The debate was described by The New York Times in 2013 as "decades old".[1]" - It would be helpful to have some more specific dates as to when exactly this debate started. Was it from the moment the GIF format was created, or starting at a later date? Gug01 (talk) 01:12, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

Time and ABC pin it as 1994, I'll set it there. theleekycauldron (talk • contribs) (they/she) 02:08, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

Cause

"tergiversate", -> hyperlink to Wikitionary, not Wikipedia

From clicking on reference 3, it appears linguist Michael Dow did the analysis, which Gretchen McCulloch only reported on. A link to Dow's original study/journal article would be better sourcing than a Mental Floss article. Gug01 (talk) 01:12, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

Switched the hyperlinks! As for the second, McCulloch is herself a subject-matter expert, so I'd rather link to the mental floss article than the primary source of Dow's github blog. theleekycauldron (talk • contribs) (they/she) 01:33, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

I see. I kind of assumed that Dow's work was some sort of published research rather than a blog, so I think it's best to keep the mental floss source. Perhaps adding the primary source too - a double citation - would be best in that case. Gug01 (talk) 02:51, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

recited! theleekycauldron (talk • contribs) (they/she) 03:03, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

Arguments & Polling

Looks great! Gug01 (talk) 01:12, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

Incidents

A lot of the content in the Incidents section seems like it could also belong in the Arguments section; there are some arguments about the pronunciation raised here that might fit there better. Gug01 (talk) 01:12, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

I moved the Gizmodo argument, but everything else seems to be popular figures taking sides either for no reason or for commonly held reasons. theleekycauldron (talk • contribs) (they/she) 01:50, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

Yeah, I think your new division works really well! Gug01 (talk) 02:48, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

why thank ya :D theleekycauldron (talk • contribs) (they/she) 02:57, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

"According to Van der Meulen, this was time a person had given advice on the usage of a word they had coined.[13]" -> the first time? Gug01 (talk) 03:04, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

yyep theleekycauldron (talk • contribs) (they/she) 03:09, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

Dictionaries

Looks great! I'll do a second check-around for sourcing & copyright, etc. later. Gug01 (talk) 01:12, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

@Gug01: thanks so much! theleekycauldron (talk • contribs) (they/she) 02:08, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

I've gone through all the sources, making sure they support the article's facts, which they do! Gug01 (talk) 03:04, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

we're gettin' there! aaa, this is quite exciting theleekycauldron (talk • contribs) (they/she) 03:09, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

new sources to add

• https://www.lefigaro.fr/langue-francaise/expressions-francaises/2016/12/06/37003-20161206ARTFIG00038-faut-il-dire-gif-ou-jif.php
• http://www.slate.fr/story/147891/prononciation-mot-gif-depend-pays theleekycauldron (talk • contribs) (she/they) 08:40, 18 February 2022 (UTC)

Tip, there's a {{refideas}} template just for this, to list potential sources for an article. ―Jochem van Hees (talk) 11:41, 18 February 2022 (UTC)

Article title

I think that simply Pronunciation of GIF in English is better for the article's title as "English" is not ambiguous in this context. I also wonder, should "GIF" be italicized in the display title? Ruбlov (talk) 21:10, 16 March 2022 (UTC)

@Ruбlov, Gen. Quon, and A455bcd9: Interestingly enough, searching and scrolling through other Wikipedia articles turns up... not much in terms of precedent. Thanks, Michael Dow. I find myself drawn to English pronunciation of GIF, or English-language pronunciation of GIF if we want to disambiguate. Other possibilities are dropping the "in the English language" qualifier entirely and adding "English" somewhere in a section heading (I like this one too), Pronunciation of GIF in English (as suggested), and retaining the current article title. thoughts? theleekycauldron (talk • contribs) (she/they) 04:20, 17 March 2022 (UTC)

Oops, it's Rublov. theleekycauldron (talk • contribs) (she/they) 04:20, 17 March 2022 (UTC)

I think Pronunciation of "www" is the most directly analogous existing article title. Not sure I like the quotation marks, though. Ruбlov (talk) 11:05, 17 March 2022 (UTC)

+1 for Pronunciation of GIF in English. It's more WP:PRECISE than "English pronunciation of GIF" and more WP:CONCISE than "English-language pronunciation of GIF" and the current one. I don't think quotes are necessary as long as the word is italicized with DISPLAYTITLE (cf Capitalization of Internet). Nardog (talk) 14:26, 17 March 2022 (UTC)

@Nardog: Honestly, I still like "Pronunciation of GIF" best, since GIF is an English word (so this feels like unnecessary precision), but it is what it is. theleekycauldron (talk • contribs) (she/they) 20:17, 17 March 2022 (UTC)

Comma addresses the topic in a worldwide fashion by starting off with a detailed use in English, and then shunting off every other language to another section—and the comma isn't even an English invention, right? theleekycauldron (talk • contribs) (she/they) 20:19, 17 March 2022 (UTC)

And there's Pronunciation of "www", which, again, treats it as an English word that happened to spread to other languages.

yeah, I think moving it at all was a mistake. I want to move it back now? theleekycauldron (talk • contribs) (she/they) 20:21, 17 March 2022 (UTC)

Would be fine by me, not sure what the rationale for the last move was in the first place. Nardog (talk) 21:23, 17 March 2022 (UTC)

@Gen. Quon and A455bcd9: Sorry to reping, but what do you think? theleekycauldron (talk • contribs) (she/they) 21:27, 17 March 2022 (UTC)

I think "Pronunciation of GIF" is fine as long as other languages are treated (as much as possible given the available sources). A455bcd9 (talk) 21:52, 17 March 2022 (UTC)

I don't have the strongest opinion; I suggested the move to potentially ward off arguments of bias, but if it needs to revert back, that's fine, too.--Gen. Quon_[Talk] 14:06, 18 March 2022 (UTC)

aighty :) I gotta add those sources from A455bcd9 now- sorry for the trouble, all! theleekycauldron (talk • contribs) (she/they) 18:18, 18 March 2022 (UTC)

NASA

Quote:

A similar acronym discrepancy arises with NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration, pronounced /ˈnæsə/ ).

I don't have access to van der Meulen, but it isn't mentioned in the Mental Floss article at all. As a non-native English speaker, this seems odd - I have always pronounced the first A in NASA the same as the A in "Aeronautics". byteflush _Talk 00:25, 15 June 2022 (UTC)

Yeah this is not a very good example because for most Americans it would be /ɛ/ (Mary–marry–merry merger), while ⟨a⟩ rarely if ever corresponds to it when not followed by ⟨r⟩. Nardog (talk) 00:39, 15 June 2022 (UTC)

Year of White House Tumblr post

In the text it's stated that the the White House's account on Tumblr made the post in April 2014, however, if you look at the lower left corner of related image it says April 2013. RulesForThee (talk) 13:31, 15 June 2022 (UTC)

French vs France

The source for [6] is about France's pronunciation of GIF, not French. There is absolutely no way to tell what the usual pronunciation of the word is in other part of the francophonie based on that article alone. It is a mistake to say this is French's pronunciation without further evidence. On the contrary, we have evidence that hard g is the favored pronunciation of Canada, where 30% of the population is French-speaking. This paragraph is missleading and just wrong based on the evidence presented in the article. Please change the word "French" for "France". Thank you. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.208.137.2 (talk) 18:28, 15 June 2022 (UTC)

Rewritten with better sources. Nardog (talk) 20:15, 15 June 2022 (UTC)

That new source is still 100% France, nothing about the rest of the francophonie. 216.208.137.2 (talk) 15:47, 16 June 2022 (UTC)

What is the evidence that hard g is the favored pronunciation of Canada you speak of? Nardog (talk) 20:01, 16 June 2022 (UTC)

Final sentence in Background needs 2 more simple edits

What a terrific Article!! I really enjoyed it, and appreciate all the good work that’s gone into it. I’m a newby copy editor and just deleted the article ‘the’ from the ABC News link at the end of Background (based on standard usage). I decided against 2 other changes I would normally make, because of the FA status / delicacy: —- 1) I believe that the ABC News (Australia) link should be pure, not restated / truncated. This is the more important of these two items, because of inherent naming confusion. —— 2) I also recommend that the attached Ref be moved much closer to the link. Happy to discuss my reasoning if that’s useful. Thanks again for this great gorgeous gift! — no gibberish anywhere in it. 💐 Best wishes, Left Central (talk) 18:58, 15 June 2022 (UTC)

Background: animation?

The phrase "GIFs are popularly used to display short, looped[1] animations" is grossly misleading when immediately following a sentence about their invention in the 80s. Gifs of the 80s and pre-jpg 90s were most often static pictures: I don't recall any animated gifs in the old days, and the Smithsonian Mag article (https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/brief-history-gif-early-internet-innovation-ubiquitous-relic-180963543/) backs up my recollection. The quoted sentence should be moved to a later location, and instead the second sentence should note that gifs were originally used for still images. I don't know how this got past the Featured Article review. AllGloryToTheHypnotoad (talk) 23:06, 15 June 2022 (UTC)

I disagree. It's pretty clear to me that the second refers to modern usage. If it refered to the past, the sentence would be in the past tense.

Besides, their original use isn't exactly relevant to the pronounciation of the acronym either way. It certainly has it's place in the main article, but not here. 66.131.141.123 (talk) 20:33, 23 August 2022

We literally used animated GIFs in 1995.208.44.170.115 (talk) 19:54, 27 July 2023 (UTC)

Why Is This An Issue?

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

I am having trouble figuring out why this is even an issue. There is a simple, general rule English that Gs before Is and Es are soft, most other cases, hard. This is particularly true at the beginning of a word. The few exceptions are some very old Norse or Germanic words like girl, and the forms of give, and sometimes when the G is part of a diagraph. But gif is none of those things. It's a new, one-syllable word so there is simply no reason it shouldn't be pronounced soft, as in jif. There is no argument for a hard G that makes any sense. Venqax (talk) 23:12, 31 August 2022 (UTC)

Your little essay is original research. As the article states, GIF derives from Graphics Interchange Format, and "graphics" is not pronounced /ˈdʒræfɪks/. Summer ^talk 10:21, 8 June 2023 (UTC)

@Venqax and SummerKrut: The article addresses both of your arguments, and should explain why they aren't definitive and why there is no scholarly consensus on a "correct" answer. In any case, this talk page isn't for discussion of the article's subject. theleekycauldron (talk • contribs) (she/her) 18:44, 8 June 2023 (UTC)

No, it is not "original research". It is not research at all, just pointing out a fact of English that anyone with a bit of education should know. Hence the question. Why is this an issue? Second, no, it's not addressed. Where "gif" comes from is a non-issue. It's not an abbreviation, it is being used as a word. Words follow word rules. So nothing has been "addressed", except that some people... you know the rest.Venqax (talk) 20:32, 20 June 2023 (UTC)

A comment on the talk page is not "original research". It is a discussion point. Furthermore, the "GIF derives from Graphics Interchange Format" is a cop-out for the people who don't want to relinquish their mispronunciation due to an informational update. While the "G" does stand for "Graphics", no one calls "JPEG" "Jay Feg" because the "P stands for Photographic". So, either we should start saying "Jay Feg" or drop this ridiculous "what the letters stand for" argument.208.44.170.115 (talk) 20:00, 27 July 2023 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Not a forum, y'all, let's keep it to discussion on how to improve the article. theleekycauldron (talk • contribs) (she/her) 20:08, 27 July 2023 (UTC)

Excellent point, 208.44.170.115. Pointedly avoiding the issue is not the same as addressing it. Venqax (talk) 17:04, 31 July 2023 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.