It doesn't. Just like how acronyms that start with PH don't have any F words in them, even though they are pronounced with an Ph/f sound, or how the acronym GAIT is prounced with a hard-G but begins with the soft-G word "Generally."

You and me both. That makes at least 2 of us.

"Jif" has always been the pronunciation. People with heads on their shoulders recognized this intuitively back in the early days of the WWW, before this conversation was even verbalized (or before anybody even realized it would need to be hashed out at all).

that's a verrrrry good argument for soft-G

Exactly. Imagine if the image format were called "CIF" instead. Would everyone give that C a hard pronunciation? Of course not. They'd call it "sif."

No, Gawker, you are wrong.

It's pronounced JIF, has always been pronounced JIF, and anyone calling it a GIF is a retard. It doesn't matter what it stands for or what the root words are. I don't go into other countries and tell them their sounds and spellings are fucked just because I don't like it and didn't learn any better.

I always assumed it was pronounced with a soft G, like the word gin. A hard G sounds awful.

Oh okay, so then POTUS (President of the United States) must be pronounced "puhthyoose." Because you have to have the letters be pronounced the same as the words they stand for, right?

I've been pronouncing it as "Jiff" the whole time, and I'm one of the people of America. So not all of us were wrong.