It’s pronounced ‘jif’ not ‘gif’, duh

Well of course it is right? I mean, when the guy that created the animated image format tells you so, you shut up and listen – unless of course it doesn't really matter and then you can just go on with your lives as normal. Yup.

Steve Wilhite is the man behind the GIF (short for Graphics Interchange Format) and the one behind this latest statement, suggesting that we've been saying it wrong since it was introduced way back in 1987. Apparently it was used partially to mock the Jif commercials at the time.

Dancing Baby was one of the internet's first big phenomenons

“The Oxford English Dictionary accepts both pronunciations,” he said. “They are wrong. It is a soft ‘G,' pronounced ‘jif.' End of story,” he said to the New York Times, while heading into the Webby Awards to accept a lifetime achievement award.

Back in the 90s, when GIFs began proliferating, they helped make the internet a more interesting place, where bandwidth was a premium and it would still be well over a decade before video became a mainstream feature online.

KitGuru Says: Nobody is suggesting we go back to those GIF heavy days though. The incessant rollover images and sound effects when transitioning between pages. Yuck.

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