Jif and Giphy Just Came Up With the Best Gif Meme

How do you say "Gif?"

By
Rob LeFebvre
Rob LeFebvre
Rob LeFebvre
Associate Editorial Director, News
  • UCLA
  • California State University, Northridge
Rob LeFebvre is the Associate Editorial Director, News for Lifewire. He has been a technology writer for more than 12 years with articles appearing in 148Apps, Cult of Mac, Engadget, and more.
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Updated on February 25, 2020 03:18PM EST

Why This Matters

It really doesn't "matter," in the scheme of things, but to see a peanut butter company and an animated images company (with a name based on the format, GIF) come together to gently make fun of the soft-G pronunciation of GIF is pretty darn fun. Who doesn't need a little fun these days?

Gif peanut butter jars from Amazon listing
Jif / Giphy / Amazon

There's a bit of a history to understand before you can fully appreciate the image above. The file type, GIF, stands for Graphics Interchange Format. It's a compression algorithm that has been popularly used for animated images on the internet.

If you've ever called a Gif a 'Jif,' we forgive you.

What's the big deal: Pronouncing the three letters has become a bit of an internet sensation, however, as most people use a hard-G sound, as in Graphics, Gurgle, or Grass. Steve Wilhite, the guy that came up with the format, however, famously told the New York Times that it should be pronounced with a soft-G, as in Giraffe, Giant, or Geography.

“The Oxford English Dictionary accepts both pronunciations,” Mr. Wilhite told the Times. “They are wrong. It is a soft ‘G,’ pronounced ‘jif.’ End of story.”

The response: The internet has gone wild over this in the years since, with folks famous and not (Jimmy Fallon, anyone?) weighing in. Our own Editor In Chief, Lance Ulanoff, created a poll on Twitter to see how people pronounce the "word." Both polls overwhelmingly fall in favor of the hard-G.

Where things stand right now: Now peanut butter maker Jif and animated images database Giphy have put together a fun little image that pokes fun at the whole thing. "If you've ever called a Gif a "Jif," the (presumably fake) jar says, "We forgive you."

The bottom line: Does this really matter? Probably not. But the image took the internet by storm, re-igniting the "Gif or Jif" psuedo-controversy. That in itself is indeed a ton of fun.

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