• tyler@programming.dev
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    3 months ago

    Gif is a proper noun and a computer product. It’s not a simple word like “arse”. This would be like people saying Nike should be pronounced “Nick” and the company “Nike” is yelling “no it’s Nike! Like the god!” And people are just like, “nah I don’t care what you want your company to be called, I’m calling it something else.”

    • kuhli@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      3 months ago

      If enough people pronounce it differently, then it’s a valid way to pronounce it.

      It doesn’t matter if it’s a proper noun, the word is still meant to convey meaning and as long as it effectively does that for the population in general, it’s valid.

      • tyler@programming.dev
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        3 months ago

        We’ve solidly been talking about English this whole time, since the entire basis for the pronunciation is that it’s a play on an English advertisement “choosy developers choose gif”. I’m not going to argue with other languages. Just like with the dude that is pulling out Ancient Greek, if anyone still speaks that they yeah they can pronounce Nike differently, otherwise it’s a translation to English.

        • 790@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          3 months ago

          Even English doesn’t have one size fits all rules. Language is social and regional. If one English speaking country pronounces zebra as “zee-bra” and another pronounces it as “zeh-bra” they’re both right.

        • CileTheSane@lemmy.ca
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          3 months ago

          In English the word “Island” has an ‘s’ in it. This was originally done by someone purposely adding the ‘s’ to make the word look more Latin, even though the English word “eiland” has no Latin root.

          So if the original intended usage matters I hope you also correct everyone who uses “island” and tell them “you know it’s spelled eiland right?”