• AnyOldName3@lemmy.world
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        5 months ago

        The format was originally designed to interchange animated palettised depictions of giraffes, so Giraffic Interchange Format made sense. They just changed the acronym when they realised that by storing different colours in the palette, you could depict things other than giraffes.

        • Viking_Hippie@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          5 months ago

          Giraffic Interchange Format made sense

          In no world does that collection of words ring true, regardless of context.

          you could depict things other than giraffes

          But why would you?

          • neidu3@sh.itjust.works
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            5 months ago

            GPUs were originally created to render giraffes faster, hence the name. The fact that they’re also useful for gaming are as coincidental as their usefulness for crypto mining and LLMs.

            A gif is just the output format after running loads of OpenGiraffeLib code through a GPU.

          • gon [he]@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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            5 months ago

            Well, it’s not the P that’s read like an F, it’s PH that’s read like an F. If it was jpheg it would be read jfeg.

              • 5765313496@lemmy.world
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                5 months ago

                I didn’t downvote either of you, but here is why I disagree. The P is inseparable from the H in this situation. I would pronounce the P as half of a PH if I could, but “puh” is nothing like the first half of the sound “phuh”.

                • Chronographs@lemmy.zip
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                  5 months ago

                  I’m just realizing that they must be gettinf the ph from the P in JPEG standing for Photographic. I’m guessing the argument is that gif is pronounced like gift (germanic root) vs giraffe (latin/italian) because graphics has a hard g. But if gif was a word there’s obviously some people who would pronounce it that was, if jpeg was a word, we probably wouldn’t say Jay-pehg but nobody would pronounce the p like a ph so there’s no need to resort to the component words of the acronym.

    • MehBlah@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      Except of course we did then and we do now. Too bad none of you ever looked at how G can be pronounced.

        • MehBlah@lemmy.world
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          5 months ago

          No the overwhelming majority of kids think its pronounced that way. The majority of us who were around when it was written know how its pronounced. How do we know? We know because the guy who wrote it told us.

          • ManosTheHandsOfFate@lemmy.world
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            5 months ago

            I first heard it in pronounced “jif” from a guy in my college dorm in the mid 90s. I’ve just pronounced it that way every since. Is it there a generation gap in how it’s pronounced? I do catch some flak from my kids about how I pronounce it.

            • MehBlah@lemmy.world
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              5 months ago

              Thank you for that pointless attempt at comparison. They never changed the name of gif nor the pronunciation of it.

          • Gerudo@lemmy.zip
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            5 months ago

            I was around before gifs even existed. No one I knew ever pronounced it jif. It was always like gift. In fact, I never even heard any question of how it was pronounced well into the use of gifs.