Is it GIF or jiff?

The Kmart ad has resurrected the GIF v jiff war that raged in the early 1990s. I thought this was settled but then some pseudo-intellectuals bring it back up. I don't know why I'm so exercised about this but I am. It was an interesting debate 20 years ago as the community was trying to come to terms on how to describe things.



Do we say GIF (hard G) or jiff?
Do we say J-P-G or jpeg?
Is it dub-dub-dub or www?
Do we say "forward slash", "slash" or leave it out all together?


It doesn't matter what Steve Wilhite says, nor does it matter what CompuServ had in their original documentation. This is not 1993. The pronunciation, as chosen in millions upon millions of conversations over the last 20 years have settled the question.

I got the following quotes from twitchy.com

That awkward moment when Kmart can't pronounce "gif" in their national commercials.

— Lauren Stricos (@laurenstricos) November 29, 2013

Not only is the KMart commercial annoying, but they improperly pronounce GIF.

— Amazing Rando (@scout_6) November 27, 2013

The Kmart commercial about "giffing out" pronounce "gif" incorrectly. I mean I use the hard "g" sound too, but on tv let's try harder.
— Hannah Murphy (@hanner2012) November 27, 2013

I don't know why I am so irritated that this religious war is being refought - but, there it is. I find it ridiculous that people make these claims. If they believed what they were saying (as opposed to being pretentious) they would be saying "jiff" instead of "GIF" in their conversations. And yet, I haven't heard it called "jiff" in close to 20 years.