It's pronounced "jif" says GIF creator Steve Wilhite.

By Crisp
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Crisp

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An Honor for the Creator of the GIF

Among the thousands of file formats that exist in modern computing, the GIF, or Graphics Interchange Format, has attained celebrity status in a sea of lesser-known BMPs, RIPs, FIGs and MIFFs. It was honored as a "word of the year" in 2012, and Tuesday night, its inventor, Steve Wilhite, will be accepting a lifetime achievement award at The Webby Awards.

Now, almost any fragment of digital culture can be spun up into a grainy, gratifying animation. GIFs provide a platform for nearly everything, it seems ? from rapid-fire political commentary to digital art to small moments of celebrity intrigue.

Has any file format received more attention, more accolades (or had more fun) than the GIF?

Invented in 1987, today the GIF has become the aesthetic calling card of modern Internet culture.

Since retiring in 2001, Mr. Wilhite has led a quieter existence than his creation. He goes on RV trips. He built a house in the country with a lot of lawn to mow. He dabbles in color photography and Java programming. He uses e-mail and Facebook to keep up with family.

He is proud of the GIF, but remains annoyed that there is still any debate over the pronunciation of the format.

?The Oxford English Dictionary accepts both pronunciations,? Mr. Wilhite said. ?They are wrong. It is a soft ?G,? pronounced ?jif.? End of story.?

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threetonesun

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It's a hard g, I don't care what this guy says. It's GRAPHICS INTERCHANGE FORMAT, why on Earth would you abbreviate that as JIF. Next he's going to tell us that JPEG stands for Goint Photographic Experts Group.

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I think if I told some a file was in a "jif" format with a "jif" file extension, most people would automatically assume .jif and not .gif LOL. Myself and 99% of the people I know have always and will always pronounce it with a hard g. Eff what the creator of the format says. He can go google himself. (pronounced joogle lol!)

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