Become popular? It’s been popular roughly for the lifespan of the format. It’s hardly language’s fault the developer wanted to make an unfunny reference to a since forgotten peanut butter slogan.
On the other hand linguistics indicate a hard g sound with the construction of the word, constituent words aside. Plenty of four letter words starting with the gi combo have a hard g, including but not limited to gift which you may notice is very similarly constructed.
Whatever else the English language may throw at us, people appreciate consistency because we can make some sense of the world. A hard g is the consistent, predictable, sensible choice for the limited availability of those virtues English offers.
There exists other words that start with gi but use the soft g, gin for example. But regardless, the pronunciation of one word is not determined by the pronunciation of other unrelated words.
Become popular? It’s been popular roughly for the lifespan of the format.
I’m gonna stop you there, because I’ve been using the format for about 30 years, and people only started using the new pronunciation in the last 10-15.
Everything you said about linguistics is entirely crap. English is not a proscriptive language. English linguistics doesn’t indicate anything at all. It is descriptive, and is anything but consistent. There are no rules about word construction or pronunciation. Words are pronounced the way they are understood, and if you are understood then you have pronounced them correctly.
You could argue that the original pronunciation is archaic, like “encyclopaedia,” but the problem there is that the word itself is like 35 years old, and there are people like me who have been using the word since there was only one acceptable pronunciation who aren’t likely to change.
I’m gonna stop you there, because I’ve been using the format for about 30 years, and people only started using the new pronunciation in the last 10-15.
I’ve been using the word since the mid 90s and it’s always been hard G for me.
I don’t say that to suggest that you or anyone else are wrong to say it with a soft G (although my brain cringes each time I hear it), but since I don’t think I invented the hard G pronunciation I think claiming it’s a recent thing is a fallacious argument against the hard G.
Nobody invented the mispronunciations, it just happens, which is why the manual included a guide. The inventor of the word (and the format) had to tell people how it was pronounced and why he chose the name, just like every other brand name.
What is recent is the fallacious arguments related to how acronyms are supposed to be pronounced, part of a larger trend towards obstinate and belligerent defense of an objectively and demonstrably false argument. The internet has made people feel like their opinions are just as valid as facts.
In the 90s, we nerds used technical terms like a shiboleth to separate other nerds from what the French call “les incompétents.” But it’s unlikely anyone would have corrected you back then, because doing so was considered impolite and elitist.
I see it as part of what Colbert called “truthiness.” There is no rule for how the word should be pronounced, but it feels like there should be, which is why the argument is so often repeated. The feeling of being right is more important than the reality of ambiguity, and people seek out validation of their presuppositions. It’s that overconfidence that fosters animosity towards debate, which is why people get so heated about silly things like this.
people only started using the new pronunciation in the last 10-15.
As someone else pointed out already, this is untrue. While it may not have been popular in your circles, it definitely was in others. I’ve been saying it with a hard g as long as you have with a soft and I’m not the originator either.
English linguistics doesn’t indicate anything at all.
They absolutely do. That’s why you can sound out a word you’ve never seen before. You may not always be right when you do because they indicate, they don’t define.
There are no rules about word construction or pronunciation.
There are, there are just exceptions. For example, an e at the end of the word is silent. I’m certain you can give me a word where it’s not, but there are at least six in this paragraph alone where it is.
if you are understood then you have pronounced them correctly
In this logic if someone has been pronouncing a word all their life with a single pronunciation and travels to another location with a much different accent they can only now be pronouncing the word wrong.
If understanding is also the only metric then a hard g would still be preferable. Not only does a written g tend to make people lean to a hard g in my experience, but there’s more words that could be mistaken for a soft g pronunciation.
You could argue that the original pronunciation is archaic,
Could I not argue that the original pronunciation has fallen out of favor?
the word itself is like 35 years old
Is there a time requirement for pronunciations to become archaic?
since there was only one acceptable pronunciation
Which isn’t a time that existed, as we’ve established
who aren’t likely to change.
Given your stance on language this is absolutely a you problem. If the rest of us collectively decided to understand it as only with a hard g, you would not be understood and therefore be pronouncing it wrong by your own logic.
There are, there are just exceptions. For example, an e at the end of the word is silent. I’m certain you can give me a word where it’s not, but there are at least six in this paragraph alone where it is.
One of the most common words with a final “e” in that paragraph is “the” which not only has a final “e” sound, but has two different final “e” sounds depending on the context: “the end” uses a /ði/ pronunciation but “the word” uses a /ðə/ pronunciation. English is very stupid.
But, I agree with your assessment. English has rules, or at least patterns. “G” is most often hard, not soft, because “J” is available for the soft version, but there’s no alternative for the hard version. English tends to follow patterns, and “gift” has a hard g, and it (and words based on it) are the only ones that start with “gif”, so every “gif” word is hard. Because “t” (unlike “e”) can’t change the sounds before it, the pattern says that “gif” should have a hard “g”.
If it were “gir”, then there would be more debate. The word “giraffe” has a soft “g” but “girl” has a hard one, so the pattern is more muddy.
Also, people who coin words don’t get to decide how they’ll be pronounced. They can certainly try, but they’ll often lose. There are plenty of words in English borrowed from other languages that not only sound nothing like the original language, but that sound nothing like they’d sound if they were English words. For example, “lingerie”. It’s a French word, but the English pronunciation sounds nothing like a French word. In fact, if someone just sounded out the word as if it were an English word, they’d probably get much closer to the French pronunciation than the awful “lawn-je-ray” which is the current accepted English pronunciation (though, they’d probably assume a hard “g” sound).
In this case, it’s too bad that Steve Wilhite didn’t have a background in linguistics or he would have realized that people would see “gif” and assume a hard “g”. It was a losing fight from the start because he either didn’t understand the assumptions people would have when they saw those letters, or he thought that somehow he could successfully fight the tide all by himself.
Your illustration using the word “the” here is awesome. Particularly the alternative pronunciations. I would also like to add the well known words “be”, “he”, “she” and “me” into the mix.
If understanding is also the only metric then a hard g would still be preferable. Not only does a written g tend to make people lean to a hard g in my experience, but there’s more words that could be mistaken for a soft g pronunciation.
What? That’s just a silly claim, the word “gift” is generally pronounced [gɪft̚] with the /t/ having no release, often the last consonant isn’t even perceived by speakers, if anything that is extremely easy to mix up with “gif” using a /g/ as opposed using a /dʒ/, compared to any other words (well I guess there’s “jif” the peanut butter brand?). You make a bad argument.
Also yes, if someone pronounced or used a word one way and then went to some theoretical place where everyone else pronounced or used it in a way where it becomes mutually unintelligible, then yes you WOULD be saying it “wrong” if you insisted on pronouncing it in a way nobody can decipher it, if you can call anything in language “wrong”. French speakers can’t just go say shit to Sicilian speakers and expect to be understood.
But no, there are no rules about word construction or pronunciation. The closest thing we have to “rules” is loose standards that people commonly us. And in the context of this conversation, most English standards don’t invoke any sort of phonemic spelling like e.g. Spanish or French or Polish or Korean or whatever. There are no “spelling rules” that dictate that a certain sequence of letters or words has to be pronounced a certain way regardless of context, even according to standards of English. None of that “exceptions” bs, Modern English spelling is mostly based off of a writing system of a language that Modern English speakers wouldn’t even understand, and as such there are only a few sometimes-consistencies-ish, like using certain constructs to differentiate lax vs tense vowels like doubling the following consonant letter vs appending an “e” at the end, when applicable. It’s just infeasible due to the history of the writing system to apply a consistent convention for phonemic spelling without reforming the entire orthography.
This is opposed to, say, French, in which standard spellings have actually consistent throughout the entire language rules for how a certain combination of letters is formally pronounced (regardless of how much French speakers like to claim their spelling is nonsense), sometimes with secondary/uncommon pronunciations, and with exceptions to those rules. And consistent rules for phenomena like liaison. And applying those rules, you can systematically pronounce a majority of words accurately even if you’ve never encountered the language in your life. Here’s a table just for fun: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_orthography#Spelling_to_sound_correspondences
This is not something you can do in English.
And even using the argument of standards, the most common descriptions of Standard English (e.g. Oxford’s dictionaries, Merriam-Webster, AHD) all list both /gɪf/ and /dʒɪf/.
Also you claim that the latter is falling out of favor, but that seems to have come from thin air. All the resources on the matter in the first place are online polls with a small sample size and a lot of bias in terms of the location of the respondants from like a decade ago, idk how you determine that one is more popular than the other in a way other than “I hear X pronunciation more than Y”. The fact that this argument is seen all over the internet and is extremely contentious should be proof enough to show you that that claim is fallacious.
From the top there’s also jiff, meaning hurry. With no more effort that puts me at two and you at one, which is more as I said. Mine are also direct homophones whereas yours relies on a certain practice that I have very different experience on the frequency of than you do.
So you recognize how exceptions work but deny they’re a part of English construction? It’s all just barely organized chaos? Where’s whatever amount of organization coming from if not rules that are frequently excepted?
Yes, I’m well aware that other languages have much better structure. I’m not sure how that means English doesn’t have rules. As a kid surely between you and some friend someone’s house had fewer rules that were less enforced. Did that mean they didn’t have any rules? Of course not!
I’ll admit my falling out of favor statement isn’t scientific. However if we take the other fella’s assertation about it only being pronounced one way to begin with then it’s very much falling out of favor.
Either way I’m not looking to start yet another branch of this argument. Least of all with someone who starts by saying English doesn’t have rules with exceptions because French does.
I’ve never had the problem of not being understood. And regardless of how long the time period was, there was a time when one guy spoke aloud the word when he invented it. You can use the new pronunciation if you like, but I use the original, as I have for 30+ years, and I will continue to do so because both are acceptable. If you don’t like it, that’s a you problem.
I’ve never had the problem of not being understood.
You are either a uniquely spectacular communicator or a liar. It’s not for me to say which. Regardless that’s not the point. If you use the soft g sound and are not understood then, by your own explanation you are saying it wrong. That’s something you need to contend with.
And regardless of how long the time period was
So no time requirement on archaic then?
there was a time when one guy spoke aloud the word when he invented it.
As is true of every word and yet I’m sure there are words you say differently than the first person. I’ll bet you don’t say the name of the element with the atomic number 13 the same way the man who discovered it does. Not to mention who knows how many words England took from France, mangled, and then got adjusted again in America. Who is the correct first person there, or does the first person only matter with this specific issue?
You can use the new pronunciation
I will as well many others.
as I have for 30+ years,
Me too! Still doesn’t make yours right and mine wrong no matter how hard you try to deride it as “new” when it’s barely newer than the format.
and I will continue to do so
I can’t stop you. I can think you ridiculous for doing so but my suspicion that this would be the only reason I would think that of you diminishes with each response you send.
both are acceptable
Perhaps, but one seems to be falling out of favor. Just like a double space after a period or writing out words greater than ten but less than one hundred.
I could call it a moving picture and not be wrong, doesn’t mean people wouldn’t think me weird for doing so. I would have to deal with that the way you need to deal with what your choices cause people to think of you.
If you don’t like it, that’s a you problem.
Sure, but it won’t stop me from making my own conclusions just like any other thing. The same is true for all of humanity to varying degrees.
You’re still not listening. I’m not deriding anything, and I’m not saying I’m right and you’re wrong. There are two pronunciations that are both in use, and it’s objectively true that one is the original and the other is the new one. Arguing anything else is dishonest. One is not archaic, because it’s still being used.
As for what you think of me, I really don’t care. You’re trying to convince me to pronounce a product name differently than I have done my entire life when I was told by the creator of the product how to pronounce it. I’ve heard your arguments, and the only linguistically relevant argument is that everyone just started doing it. That will be a compelling argument 100 years from now, but it’s not a compelling argument to change.
You are deriding it. Is calling the chess piece a queen instead of a Vizir new? There’s a much bigger gap between that change than this one? Or is it not new because that’s what you know it as?
You can hide behind whatever you want, but your “told by the creator” rhetoric exposes you, even if you can’t admit it to yourself.
It’s not a compelling argument for you to change, again, because you’ve decided your way is the better one. Language, much like any other form of knowledge, has been changing, evolving, and updating with increasing speed for as long as this format has been around. I bet if you think you can figure out the connection.
It may be objectively true that one is the way the creator pronounced it but, as stated, it’s also objectively true that originations don’t dictate the pronunciations of words. I’ve given you plenty of ways that English does operate and how that lends itself to the hard g pronunciation as well as the fact that the so-called “new” pronunciation has been around nearly as long as the other one. Of course you could call that the “old” one, which is a more common counterpoint to new, yet you consistently choose “original”. But I guess neither of us is listening, hmm?
Whatever. Take your ball and go home and keep telling yourself you don’t care while telling everyone else you do with your own choices.
You sound really upset about this. Originations, at the time of origination, is the only thing that dictates the pronunciation of a new word. We have all been “told by the creator” because he wrote it down for everyone to avoid confusion. Confusion followed anyway, in part due to the absurd lies people shared online (including yourself) about non-existent rules of English linguistics. Yes, I find that annoying, but that’s lingguistics. Things change, sometimes for stupid reasons, but that doesn’t mean they haven’t changed. Pointing out that the reasons are stupid is accurate, and we shouldn’t pretend that they aren’t stupid.
Maybe tomorrow people will start saying “gife” and then that will be the new pronunciation. New and old are not value judgements, they are just the reality of the passage of time and the evolution of language. If they started saying “gife” because they think the promunciation of acronyms is required to change every 15 years, then that would also be a stupid reason to change. It’s still a new pronunciation, and then there would be three acceptable pronunciations of the word.
I am listening to you, you just aren’t saying anything of value. You’re attacking me because you don’t like that I haven’t adopted your preferred pronunciation of a word. You don’t like me because I haven’t changed to fit your preference. I don’t care about you, because you’re the sort of person who makes value judgements about a person based on their pronunciations of a word. Your entire argument is that I should change because you don’t like the way I talk. I’m not asking you to change the way you talk. I’m pointing out the flaw in your thinking, and asking you to think for yourself. Don’t listen to internet experts who make shit up. That’s a path to ruin, and while we’re talking about something silly and inconsequential, your attitude towards reality and dissent is alarming.
If you’re reading tone into my text, that’s a you problem. I doubt I can to anything to affect that, but text doesn’t carry tone, we add it ourselves based on ourselves.
Originations, at the time of origination
Sure. But if one is new the other is old. The fact that, for you, one is always new and the other is never old, says something. Perhaps you consider this reading tone in as I just talked about.
is the only thing that dictates the pronunciation of a new word.
I thought understanding dictated pronunciation. If I make up a word on the spot it means nothing because you don’t know my definition. If I write it here you will use the rules of English as you understand them to work out a pronunciation. If I had a different one this brand new word with only two people who know it has two distinct pronunciations. If you tell another person it now has three with two of them understanding the “new” pronunciation. Your own rules don’t agree.
We have all been “told by the creator” because he wrote it down for everyone to avoid confusion. Confusion followed anyway
Is that because he wrote it down and the rules indicate a different pronunciation as sensible, or because there are no rules and writing it was a futile exercise?
in part due to the absurd lies people shared online (including yourself) about non-existent rules of English linguistics.
Just because they are inconvenient for you, as well as inconsistent, does not make them non-existent or lies. The rule of law, so to speak, is inconstant but still exists. Breaking the law and getting caught at it comes with repercussions, except when it doesn’t. English has rules that are not always followed. In some cases the exceptions may even outweigh the rule, but we still consider it when entering unknown territory. I will again point to the logic we use when sounding out a word we have only seen written and add looking up a word we have only heard spoken. G makes a sound as in go, except when it doesn’t. This is a rule and an exception.
New and old are not value judgements
Correct, but new and original, used consistently, when it’s been repeatedly pointed out that “new” is functionally the same age yet that’s not been acknowledged, are.
I am listening to you, you just aren’t saying anything of value.
Something of value and something you value are not necessarily equivalent. Referring to someone else’s statements as lies because you don’t agree with them demonstrates a personal lack of value in their statements, but not an objective one. I hope you can see that difference.
You’re attacking me because you don’t like that I haven’t adopted your preferred pronunciation of a word.
My “attacking you”, which I’ll wager is far more limited than you believe, is because you’re doing the verbose equivalent of “nu uh, I’m right” and it’s exhausting.
You don’t like me because I haven’t changed to fit your preference.
No. I think you’re odd because you pronounce a word in a counterintuitive way and refuse to change. I don’t like you because you appear to have a penchant for acting superior and say that’s not what you’re doing.
I don’t care about you
Then you’ve spent an absurd amount of time here for a person and a topic you don’t care about.
because you’re the sort of person who makes value judgements about a person based on their pronunciations of a word.
Everybody in the world makes value judgements about others for something others think is ridiculous. We are all flawed humans. Many of us seek to do better than we did before.
Your entire argument is that I should change because you don’t like the way I talk.
And here you prove that you haven’t listened. In all this time and all these words that hasn’t been my argument at any point.
I’m not asking you to change the way you talk.
No, you’re just giving the impression that my way is the inferior way because yours was first and handed to us by the creator. Mine is based on lies. You’re not asking me to change, you just want me to feel bad if I don’t so you can tell yourself that you’re enlightened.
I’m pointing out the flaw in your thinking, and asking you to think for yourself.
It’s funny how often people who don’t want to say they want people to agree with them say they want others to think for themselves. I couldn’t have come to the place I am by thinking for myself? Which places can I get by doing so?
You also have a difficult time getting someone to accept flaws in their thinking by using visibly flawed thinking.
Don’t listen to internet experts who make shit up.
Like you, who says English has no rules? Or the creator of the gif, who made up a word spelled gif and pronounced jif? Does it matter if they’re not on the Internet because all the way through high school they spent a lot of time on English rules.
That’s a path to ruin
Seems a bit hyperbolic. Will the way I choose to pronounce words just be my downfall, all of society’s, or something in between?
while we’re talking about something silly and inconsequential, your attitude towards reality and dissent
I know I cut off a couple words here, but I needed to highlight that anyone who says someone’s attitude toward reality is inconsequential perhaps needs to consider some introspection before continuing a conversation.
This is all an exercise in futility. You can’t even agree with yourself on basic things (there’s no rules, the only rule is being understood, the creator decides pronunciation) so there is no hope you’ll care enough time try and understand someone you have decided is lying and not thinking for themselves. I hope the people who deal with you day to day get a better version of you than the one you present here, and that at some point you can really dig in to yourself and see the parts of you that are on display in this exchange but you insist aren’t there. I’m sure they extend to other parts of your personality and that you’d be better off without them.
I’ve been saying gif with a soft g for over twenty years. Telling me not to is what makes English worse. As far I’m concerned both pronunciations are valid.
In your opinion. “Jiggawatt” is not a common English pronunciation outside of back to the future references at this point. People mostly settled on one over the other because it makes sense to pronounce a word a similar way to be more easily understood. It’s not always the case, sure, but I think you’ll find multiple pronunciations are the exception, not the rule. That’s why you can come up with a good handful of such words, but you’ll be using words with single pronunciations to talk about them.
Become popular? It’s been popular roughly for the lifespan of the format. It’s hardly language’s fault the developer wanted to make an unfunny reference to a since forgotten peanut butter slogan.
On the other hand linguistics indicate a hard g sound with the construction of the word, constituent words aside. Plenty of four letter words starting with the gi combo have a hard g, including but not limited to gift which you may notice is very similarly constructed.
Whatever else the English language may throw at us, people appreciate consistency because we can make some sense of the world. A hard g is the consistent, predictable, sensible choice for the limited availability of those virtues English offers.
There exists other words that start with gi but use the soft g, gin for example. But regardless, the pronunciation of one word is not determined by the pronunciation of other unrelated words.
In English? Yes. In other, more structured and sane languages? No.
I’m gonna stop you there, because I’ve been using the format for about 30 years, and people only started using the new pronunciation in the last 10-15.
Everything you said about linguistics is entirely crap. English is not a proscriptive language. English linguistics doesn’t indicate anything at all. It is descriptive, and is anything but consistent. There are no rules about word construction or pronunciation. Words are pronounced the way they are understood, and if you are understood then you have pronounced them correctly.
You could argue that the original pronunciation is archaic, like “encyclopaedia,” but the problem there is that the word itself is like 35 years old, and there are people like me who have been using the word since there was only one acceptable pronunciation who aren’t likely to change.
I’ve been using the word since the mid 90s and it’s always been hard G for me.
I don’t say that to suggest that you or anyone else are wrong to say it with a soft G (although my brain cringes each time I hear it), but since I don’t think I invented the hard G pronunciation I think claiming it’s a recent thing is a fallacious argument against the hard G.
Nobody invented the mispronunciations, it just happens, which is why the manual included a guide. The inventor of the word (and the format) had to tell people how it was pronounced and why he chose the name, just like every other brand name.
What is recent is the fallacious arguments related to how acronyms are supposed to be pronounced, part of a larger trend towards obstinate and belligerent defense of an objectively and demonstrably false argument. The internet has made people feel like their opinions are just as valid as facts.
In the 90s, we nerds used technical terms like a shiboleth to separate other nerds from what the French call “les incompétents.” But it’s unlikely anyone would have corrected you back then, because doing so was considered impolite and elitist.
I see it as part of what Colbert called “truthiness.” There is no rule for how the word should be pronounced, but it feels like there should be, which is why the argument is so often repeated. The feeling of being right is more important than the reality of ambiguity, and people seek out validation of their presuppositions. It’s that overconfidence that fosters animosity towards debate, which is why people get so heated about silly things like this.
This is my only point:
As someone else pointed out already, this is untrue. While it may not have been popular in your circles, it definitely was in others. I’ve been saying it with a hard g as long as you have with a soft and I’m not the originator either.
They absolutely do. That’s why you can sound out a word you’ve never seen before. You may not always be right when you do because they indicate, they don’t define.
There are, there are just exceptions. For example, an e at the end of the word is silent. I’m certain you can give me a word where it’s not, but there are at least six in this paragraph alone where it is.
In this logic if someone has been pronouncing a word all their life with a single pronunciation and travels to another location with a much different accent they can only now be pronouncing the word wrong.
If understanding is also the only metric then a hard g would still be preferable. Not only does a written g tend to make people lean to a hard g in my experience, but there’s more words that could be mistaken for a soft g pronunciation.
Could I not argue that the original pronunciation has fallen out of favor?
Is there a time requirement for pronunciations to become archaic?
Which isn’t a time that existed, as we’ve established
Given your stance on language this is absolutely a you problem. If the rest of us collectively decided to understand it as only with a hard g, you would not be understood and therefore be pronouncing it wrong by your own logic.
One of the most common words with a final “e” in that paragraph is “the” which not only has a final “e” sound, but has two different final “e” sounds depending on the context: “the end” uses a /ði/ pronunciation but “the word” uses a /ðə/ pronunciation. English is very stupid.
But, I agree with your assessment. English has rules, or at least patterns. “G” is most often hard, not soft, because “J” is available for the soft version, but there’s no alternative for the hard version. English tends to follow patterns, and “gift” has a hard g, and it (and words based on it) are the only ones that start with “gif”, so every “gif” word is hard. Because “t” (unlike “e”) can’t change the sounds before it, the pattern says that “gif” should have a hard “g”.
If it were “gir”, then there would be more debate. The word “giraffe” has a soft “g” but “girl” has a hard one, so the pattern is more muddy.
Also, people who coin words don’t get to decide how they’ll be pronounced. They can certainly try, but they’ll often lose. There are plenty of words in English borrowed from other languages that not only sound nothing like the original language, but that sound nothing like they’d sound if they were English words. For example, “lingerie”. It’s a French word, but the English pronunciation sounds nothing like a French word. In fact, if someone just sounded out the word as if it were an English word, they’d probably get much closer to the French pronunciation than the awful “lawn-je-ray” which is the current accepted English pronunciation (though, they’d probably assume a hard “g” sound).
In this case, it’s too bad that Steve Wilhite didn’t have a background in linguistics or he would have realized that people would see “gif” and assume a hard “g”. It was a losing fight from the start because he either didn’t understand the assumptions people would have when they saw those letters, or he thought that somehow he could successfully fight the tide all by himself.
Your illustration using the word “the” here is awesome. Particularly the alternative pronunciations. I would also like to add the well known words “be”, “he”, “she” and “me” into the mix.
What? That’s just a silly claim, the word “gift” is generally pronounced [gɪft̚] with the /t/ having no release, often the last consonant isn’t even perceived by speakers, if anything that is extremely easy to mix up with “gif” using a /g/ as opposed using a /dʒ/, compared to any other words (well I guess there’s “jif” the peanut butter brand?). You make a bad argument.
Also yes, if someone pronounced or used a word one way and then went to some theoretical place where everyone else pronounced or used it in a way where it becomes mutually unintelligible, then yes you WOULD be saying it “wrong” if you insisted on pronouncing it in a way nobody can decipher it, if you can call anything in language “wrong”. French speakers can’t just go say shit to Sicilian speakers and expect to be understood.
But no, there are no rules about word construction or pronunciation. The closest thing we have to “rules” is loose standards that people commonly us. And in the context of this conversation, most English standards don’t invoke any sort of phonemic spelling like e.g. Spanish or French or Polish or Korean or whatever. There are no “spelling rules” that dictate that a certain sequence of letters or words has to be pronounced a certain way regardless of context, even according to standards of English. None of that “exceptions” bs, Modern English spelling is mostly based off of a writing system of a language that Modern English speakers wouldn’t even understand, and as such there are only a few sometimes-consistencies-ish, like using certain constructs to differentiate lax vs tense vowels like doubling the following consonant letter vs appending an “e” at the end, when applicable. It’s just infeasible due to the history of the writing system to apply a consistent convention for phonemic spelling without reforming the entire orthography.
This is opposed to, say, French, in which standard spellings have actually consistent throughout the entire language rules for how a certain combination of letters is formally pronounced (regardless of how much French speakers like to claim their spelling is nonsense), sometimes with secondary/uncommon pronunciations, and with exceptions to those rules. And consistent rules for phenomena like liaison. And applying those rules, you can systematically pronounce a majority of words accurately even if you’ve never encountered the language in your life. Here’s a table just for fun: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_orthography#Spelling_to_sound_correspondences
This is not something you can do in English.
And even using the argument of standards, the most common descriptions of Standard English (e.g. Oxford’s dictionaries, Merriam-Webster, AHD) all list both /gɪf/ and /dʒɪf/.
Also you claim that the latter is falling out of favor, but that seems to have come from thin air. All the resources on the matter in the first place are online polls with a small sample size and a lot of bias in terms of the location of the respondants from like a decade ago, idk how you determine that one is more popular than the other in a way other than “I hear X pronunciation more than Y”. The fact that this argument is seen all over the internet and is extremely contentious should be proof enough to show you that that claim is fallacious.
From the top there’s also jiff, meaning hurry. With no more effort that puts me at two and you at one, which is more as I said. Mine are also direct homophones whereas yours relies on a certain practice that I have very different experience on the frequency of than you do.
So you recognize how exceptions work but deny they’re a part of English construction? It’s all just barely organized chaos? Where’s whatever amount of organization coming from if not rules that are frequently excepted?
Yes, I’m well aware that other languages have much better structure. I’m not sure how that means English doesn’t have rules. As a kid surely between you and some friend someone’s house had fewer rules that were less enforced. Did that mean they didn’t have any rules? Of course not!
I’ll admit my falling out of favor statement isn’t scientific. However if we take the other fella’s assertation about it only being pronounced one way to begin with then it’s very much falling out of favor.
Either way I’m not looking to start yet another branch of this argument. Least of all with someone who starts by saying English doesn’t have rules with exceptions because French does.
I don’t think you’ve ever had a single bit of education on linguistics in your life and it shows.
I’ve never had the problem of not being understood. And regardless of how long the time period was, there was a time when one guy spoke aloud the word when he invented it. You can use the new pronunciation if you like, but I use the original, as I have for 30+ years, and I will continue to do so because both are acceptable. If you don’t like it, that’s a you problem.
You are either a uniquely spectacular communicator or a liar. It’s not for me to say which. Regardless that’s not the point. If you use the soft g sound and are not understood then, by your own explanation you are saying it wrong. That’s something you need to contend with.
So no time requirement on archaic then?
As is true of every word and yet I’m sure there are words you say differently than the first person. I’ll bet you don’t say the name of the element with the atomic number 13 the same way the man who discovered it does. Not to mention who knows how many words England took from France, mangled, and then got adjusted again in America. Who is the correct first person there, or does the first person only matter with this specific issue?
I will as well many others.
Me too! Still doesn’t make yours right and mine wrong no matter how hard you try to deride it as “new” when it’s barely newer than the format.
I can’t stop you. I can think you ridiculous for doing so but my suspicion that this would be the only reason I would think that of you diminishes with each response you send.
Perhaps, but one seems to be falling out of favor. Just like a double space after a period or writing out words greater than ten but less than one hundred.
I could call it a moving picture and not be wrong, doesn’t mean people wouldn’t think me weird for doing so. I would have to deal with that the way you need to deal with what your choices cause people to think of you.
Sure, but it won’t stop me from making my own conclusions just like any other thing. The same is true for all of humanity to varying degrees.
You’re still not listening. I’m not deriding anything, and I’m not saying I’m right and you’re wrong. There are two pronunciations that are both in use, and it’s objectively true that one is the original and the other is the new one. Arguing anything else is dishonest. One is not archaic, because it’s still being used.
As for what you think of me, I really don’t care. You’re trying to convince me to pronounce a product name differently than I have done my entire life when I was told by the creator of the product how to pronounce it. I’ve heard your arguments, and the only linguistically relevant argument is that everyone just started doing it. That will be a compelling argument 100 years from now, but it’s not a compelling argument to change.
You are deriding it. Is calling the chess piece a queen instead of a Vizir new? There’s a much bigger gap between that change than this one? Or is it not new because that’s what you know it as?
You can hide behind whatever you want, but your “told by the creator” rhetoric exposes you, even if you can’t admit it to yourself.
It’s not a compelling argument for you to change, again, because you’ve decided your way is the better one. Language, much like any other form of knowledge, has been changing, evolving, and updating with increasing speed for as long as this format has been around. I bet if you think you can figure out the connection.
It may be objectively true that one is the way the creator pronounced it but, as stated, it’s also objectively true that originations don’t dictate the pronunciations of words. I’ve given you plenty of ways that English does operate and how that lends itself to the hard g pronunciation as well as the fact that the so-called “new” pronunciation has been around nearly as long as the other one. Of course you could call that the “old” one, which is a more common counterpoint to new, yet you consistently choose “original”. But I guess neither of us is listening, hmm?
Whatever. Take your ball and go home and keep telling yourself you don’t care while telling everyone else you do with your own choices.
You sound really upset about this. Originations, at the time of origination, is the only thing that dictates the pronunciation of a new word. We have all been “told by the creator” because he wrote it down for everyone to avoid confusion. Confusion followed anyway, in part due to the absurd lies people shared online (including yourself) about non-existent rules of English linguistics. Yes, I find that annoying, but that’s lingguistics. Things change, sometimes for stupid reasons, but that doesn’t mean they haven’t changed. Pointing out that the reasons are stupid is accurate, and we shouldn’t pretend that they aren’t stupid.
Maybe tomorrow people will start saying “gife” and then that will be the new pronunciation. New and old are not value judgements, they are just the reality of the passage of time and the evolution of language. If they started saying “gife” because they think the promunciation of acronyms is required to change every 15 years, then that would also be a stupid reason to change. It’s still a new pronunciation, and then there would be three acceptable pronunciations of the word.
I am listening to you, you just aren’t saying anything of value. You’re attacking me because you don’t like that I haven’t adopted your preferred pronunciation of a word. You don’t like me because I haven’t changed to fit your preference. I don’t care about you, because you’re the sort of person who makes value judgements about a person based on their pronunciations of a word. Your entire argument is that I should change because you don’t like the way I talk. I’m not asking you to change the way you talk. I’m pointing out the flaw in your thinking, and asking you to think for yourself. Don’t listen to internet experts who make shit up. That’s a path to ruin, and while we’re talking about something silly and inconsequential, your attitude towards reality and dissent is alarming.
If you’re reading tone into my text, that’s a you problem. I doubt I can to anything to affect that, but text doesn’t carry tone, we add it ourselves based on ourselves.
Sure. But if one is new the other is old. The fact that, for you, one is always new and the other is never old, says something. Perhaps you consider this reading tone in as I just talked about.
I thought understanding dictated pronunciation. If I make up a word on the spot it means nothing because you don’t know my definition. If I write it here you will use the rules of English as you understand them to work out a pronunciation. If I had a different one this brand new word with only two people who know it has two distinct pronunciations. If you tell another person it now has three with two of them understanding the “new” pronunciation. Your own rules don’t agree.
Is that because he wrote it down and the rules indicate a different pronunciation as sensible, or because there are no rules and writing it was a futile exercise?
Just because they are inconvenient for you, as well as inconsistent, does not make them non-existent or lies. The rule of law, so to speak, is inconstant but still exists. Breaking the law and getting caught at it comes with repercussions, except when it doesn’t. English has rules that are not always followed. In some cases the exceptions may even outweigh the rule, but we still consider it when entering unknown territory. I will again point to the logic we use when sounding out a word we have only seen written and add looking up a word we have only heard spoken. G makes a sound as in go, except when it doesn’t. This is a rule and an exception.
Correct, but new and original, used consistently, when it’s been repeatedly pointed out that “new” is functionally the same age yet that’s not been acknowledged, are.
Something of value and something you value are not necessarily equivalent. Referring to someone else’s statements as lies because you don’t agree with them demonstrates a personal lack of value in their statements, but not an objective one. I hope you can see that difference.
My “attacking you”, which I’ll wager is far more limited than you believe, is because you’re doing the verbose equivalent of “nu uh, I’m right” and it’s exhausting.
No. I think you’re odd because you pronounce a word in a counterintuitive way and refuse to change. I don’t like you because you appear to have a penchant for acting superior and say that’s not what you’re doing.
Then you’ve spent an absurd amount of time here for a person and a topic you don’t care about.
Everybody in the world makes value judgements about others for something others think is ridiculous. We are all flawed humans. Many of us seek to do better than we did before.
And here you prove that you haven’t listened. In all this time and all these words that hasn’t been my argument at any point.
No, you’re just giving the impression that my way is the inferior way because yours was first and handed to us by the creator. Mine is based on lies. You’re not asking me to change, you just want me to feel bad if I don’t so you can tell yourself that you’re enlightened.
It’s funny how often people who don’t want to say they want people to agree with them say they want others to think for themselves. I couldn’t have come to the place I am by thinking for myself? Which places can I get by doing so?
You also have a difficult time getting someone to accept flaws in their thinking by using visibly flawed thinking.
Like you, who says English has no rules? Or the creator of the gif, who made up a word spelled gif and pronounced jif? Does it matter if they’re not on the Internet because all the way through high school they spent a lot of time on English rules.
Seems a bit hyperbolic. Will the way I choose to pronounce words just be my downfall, all of society’s, or something in between?
I know I cut off a couple words here, but I needed to highlight that anyone who says someone’s attitude toward reality is inconsequential perhaps needs to consider some introspection before continuing a conversation.
This is all an exercise in futility. You can’t even agree with yourself on basic things (there’s no rules, the only rule is being understood, the creator decides pronunciation) so there is no hope you’ll care enough time try and understand someone you have decided is lying and not thinking for themselves. I hope the people who deal with you day to day get a better version of you than the one you present here, and that at some point you can really dig in to yourself and see the parts of you that are on display in this exchange but you insist aren’t there. I’m sure they extend to other parts of your personality and that you’d be better off without them.
Jift.
Yep. Jiffy is only used for peanut butter. Great point!
You can find plenty of places where the claim is that it’s a soft g because “choosey devs choose gif”.
Where jiffy is used is irrelevant in that case.
It’s been popular in use but casual everyday people weren’t always bringing them up in conversation.
English is not consistent, accept that. You can say gif but I’ll continue to call it gif.
This is the real answer. Both are correct and that’s that. It can be gif as in image, or gif as in graphic.
That doesn’t mean we have an ehxcuse to haje jt worse
I’ve been saying gif with a soft g for over twenty years. Telling me not to is what makes English worse. As far I’m concerned both pronunciations are valid.
In your opinion. “Jiggawatt” is not a common English pronunciation outside of back to the future references at this point. People mostly settled on one over the other because it makes sense to pronounce a word a similar way to be more easily understood. It’s not always the case, sure, but I think you’ll find multiple pronunciations are the exception, not the rule. That’s why you can come up with a good handful of such words, but you’ll be using words with single pronunciations to talk about them.