this post was submitted on 17 Aug 2023
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Just a few examples that come to mind. Additionally, the pronunciation of the individual words included in an acronym DOES NOT determine the pronunciation of that acronym. See SCUBA as an example.
Counterpoint: Gift
Literally has gif in it and is pronounced with a hard 'g'.
Counter counter point. The inventor of the gif said it’s pronounced like the peanut butter. It’s already been settled.
Just because somebody who made a word wants to pronounce it a certain way doesn't mean that's others will pronounce it.
Heck, look at the at history of the word tomato. Came from the native Nahuatl word tomatl, which was changed to tomate for Spanish and then tomato for English. The British are closer to both the native Nahuatl and Spanish pronunciations of the word but few Americans will say it as "tuh-maa-tow".
I mean that’s literally how it works. You pronounced the peanut butter with a soft J. You probably pronounce Lyft as Lift and JoS A Bank as Joseph A Bank. What a company chooses to name its product (gif was a product trying to be sold to software devs) they can choose however they want it to be pronounced. If you stop thinking of gif as a normal word and more as a product that was and continues to be sold then it makes a lot more sense why they literally gave it a catchphrase; “choosy developers choose gif”