Pronunciation of GIF
The pronunciation of GIF, an acronym for the Graphics Interchange Format, has been disputed since the 1990s. Popularly rendered in English as a one-syllable word, the acronym is most commonly pronounced GHIF (with a hard g as in gig) or JIF (with a soft g as in gin), differing in the phoneme represented by the letter G. Many public figures and institutions have taken sides in the debate; Steve Wilhite, the computer scientist who created the Graphics Interchange Format, gave a speech at the 2013 Webby Awards arguing for the soft-g pronunciation.