At least I can take comfort that McCain doesn't know what one is, and Romney has other people to take care of such matters.
Reshared post from +The Wire
Classic gaffe. http://thewi.re/1oXNbD1
Obama Made an Important Executive Decision on the Pronunciation of ‘GIF’
President Obama pronounces “GIF” with a hard “g” (i.e. incorrectly), according to a video released by the White House late last night.
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+Dave Hill seriously? Are we going to have to have a talk where I link Chris Hardwick?
What, like this? Chris Hardwick goes off on @Midnight
Bah. I'll settle for Steve Wilhite's determination, ease of pronunciation, and tradition (i.e., how I've always pronounced it).
Yes that one! You got it.
Hard G all the time
Hardwick is not the final authority. The guys that came up with the format are. They pronounce it "Jif" so "Jif "it is.
If it were a person folks wouldn't even be arguing about this. The singer Sade's name is pronounced "shah-day" even though there isn't an H to be found in it. It's considered rude to pronounce someone's name other than they way they want it to be pronounced. The same should be true of image formats. Especially when the creator of the format has made it clear how it should be pronounced.
Can you yanks stop calling the bricks ‘legos’ then. The company says ‘Legos’ is wrong, and that is greeted by Americans going “I can call them what I want.”
@LH – Huh. Will have to look that one up. Not much chance of changing — perhaps we can just consider it a mistranslation.
It is one of my (many) bugbears. You see “legos” on a comment thread, and if you point out it is Lego (I have a piece of Lego, I have much Lego, there are five Lego bricks), you get shouted down “I CAN SAY IT ANYWAY I LIKE. Blah blah freedom, blah blah 1st amendment, blah blah America Number 1..”
The only other word starting ‘gif’ is gift (and its derivatives).
Don’t get me started about ‘scone’. IT HAS AN E ON THE END.
@LH – Yyyyyeah … folks who confuse “grammar” with “Constitutionally protected speech” are … irritating.
I can certainly understand the reasoning behind “GIF” being pronounced with a hard “G”. I’m just unconvinced it’s the “correct” answer.
“Scone” doesn’t come up in conversation frequently for me. A dear friend of mine pronounces it like it rhymes with “stun” — I assumed that was some sort of funny English pronunciation thing.
I very rarely say ‘Smores’ except in the sentence “What are these smores the Yanks are always going on about?” 🙂
I belive ‘Scon’ is northern dialect now used as an affectation. People near me get told off – friends, family, strangers, I don’t care.