Hey everyone,
Just come across this article on the Cnet/Guardian website. Not that its going to change the world or anything, but nice to correct yourself occassionally
Cheers 
The original words used to make the acronym are important, IMHO. The G comes from āGraphicsā, a hard G, so to argue that the G in GIF should be soft is quite illogical.
Thereās no actual right or wrong answer, of course, so the only reference point (other than personal preference) is the sound of the original word.
Iāve always said it with a hard āgā for that reason as well.
There are a number of words and acronyms in the tech world that have more than one way to say it.
For example, MySQL: pronounced as āMy S-Q-Lā or āMy Seeqilā.
The debate rages on:
Steve Wilhite told the New York Times that he was āannoyedā there was still a debate over how to say the acronym.
He added that the Oxford English Dictionary was wrong to say it could be pronounced both ways.
The OED told the BBC that it was beyond the software engineerās control to determine how the word should be said.
From here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-22620473
FWIW, Iāve always said gif (as opposed to jif).
I always say gif as well. In Dutch āgifā is the word for poison and pronounced with a hard G, so I basically donāt know any better
(Itās actually an even harder G than the English one, like only the Dutch can, it really sounds like gggg ;))
If the person responsible for the GIF format wanted it pronounced JIF (as in cleaning powder) then they should have spelt it that way.
Anyway, I havenāt seen any explanation of what the G stands for where the word is pronounced with a soft G.
Just because Steve Wilhite invented the GIF format doesnāt mean that he has any say in how GIF is pronounced (other than that having spelt it G.I.F he reduced greatly the chance of people pronouncing it as ācleaning powderā - although for some reason he seems to think that Jif is peanut butter - which could be somewhat hazardous to his health if he ever decides to eat some).
Looks like we all agree. Hard G it is.
Our Twitter followers donāt agree howeverā¦ there was some hot debate yesterday.
In Italy itās jif, but only because āgiā is always pronounced ājiā
Ah, Italians! Well, they used to have a hard G, so Iām sure it can be brought back with a bit of effort. The ancient Romans had a hard G and no soft G. They didnāt even have a J.
Off Topic:
So what do they call you, Guido? Should we be calling you Juido? 
I like to say GIF since thatās the right one. But I always ended up saying JIF most of the time. I think it was meant to pronounce GIF better or JIF sounds better than GIF. But since itās an acronym I think itās best to say G-I-F.
Hehe, itās only an acronym if you pronounce it as a word. If you spell out the letters, itās no longer an acronym, but simply an initialism. (Acronyms are a subset of initialisms).
They still have a hard G. Only the G followed by E or I is soft. GA, GO, GU, GHI and GHE (adding a non pronounced H between the G and the E and I) are all hard Gās.
End of lesson ;)[/ot]
I have always used the acronym to say it. Anyone else like me? Iāve always thought it was weird to pronounce it either GIF or JIFā¦ Jpeg on the other hand seems natural.
Sounds like you mean that you donāt pronounce it as an acronym, then (see post #12). If you pronounce the letters separately (G-I-F)āthat is, as an initialismāthen Iād say you are very much in a minority. Iāve never heard it pronounced like that, although .PNG seems to vary 50/50 between āP-N-Gā and āpingā. I also occasionally hear people speak of a āJ-P-Gā, but itās pretty rare.
yeah, loved the debate on the pronunciation. I felt Jif sounds better than Gif (though Iām not sound expert). World has moved over to png yea nostalgic about those animations though.
And as for the correct pronunciation of that ā¦ 
Letās have a debate over that
Okay. Iām not good with terminologies. Most people online (wherever they are in the world) say acronyms instead of initialism. So I get along with it. Iāll remember āinitialismā from now on (hope I wonāt forget!LoL).
Awesome. āInitialismā it is. I didnāt know I was even in the minority. Thatās great to know!