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Comment by giancarlostoro | Hacker News Reader

It's the same as GIS, you wouldn't say jizz now would you?

I absolutely do, every single time it comes up.

I hadn't thought about how to pronounce GIS, but do you have a problem with the pronunciation of the Japanese Industrial Standards: JIS?

I've been pronouncing both of them as /dʒis/ like hiss and not /dʒɪz/. I however am not a native english speaker of English. I wonder if native speakers gravitate towards the z more?

I would end both with the S sound, but I'm operating under the assumption that the person I was replying to either pronounces their Ss as Zs or can't tell the difference between the S and Z sounds.

Because the other assumption I could have gone with is the less charitable take that they know GIS with a soft G doesn't sound like jizz, but they were just looking for a crude way to mock the soft G.

I think it depends on region. Related, many speakers pronounce chips and salza, Tezla, Wezley.

I take it that you haven’t met the Arcgees people…

i am absolutely going to from now on

The developer of the format declared the pronunciation 30+ years ago. It has always been jif.

Yeah, but society overruled them.

How do you pronounce giraffe?

Same way I pronounce my first name btw ;) but I think of "gif" as "gift" and this is probably the subconscious association people make without realizing it.

Which is why I find it fun to bring up that in Old English "gift" hadn't yet picked up the "t" and was spelled "gif", but in Old English "g" was most commonly "HY". I like the Old English pronunciation of "gif" as "HYEEF", which is a "compromise" position that often makes some of both soft-g and hard-g "gif" pronunciation fans angry.

I sometimes just pick the opposite of whatever everyone agreed to just for fun. I do the same when people cry about vim or emacs since I have used both. ;)

Some men just want to watch the world burn. At least it's mostly harmless fun anyway. It's even funnier when they bring up how my name is pronounced in defense of "jiff" and I tell them, so you're calling me the expert in "Gi" pronunciation then? :)

I have never heard this third option before but I love it!

I do too. The idea that any one pronunciation is more correct based on the letters is quite amusing, given there's examples that work all ways.

How do you pronounce gift?

Jift

gorge = george

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