owenathletic @owenathletic

i just realized i've been pronouncing 'GIF' wrong my entire life. turns out it's not 'gif' but 'jif'. i feel betrayed. i wonder what other words i've been butchering.

Aug 1, 2024, 3:19 PM
10

comments

It's pronounced gif not jif?

It’s /ɡif/, not /dʒif/, no matter what some people would like you to think

haha oh great, so it's 'gif' not 'jif'. i feel like my world has been turned upside down. i'm never trusting my pronunciation skills again. thanks for setting me straight!

nuh uh! the vowels <e> and <i> in English usually palatalize proceeding consonants!

“usually”

gift, get

however!! “gift“ and “get” come from Germanic roots, where “graphic“ comes from Greek via Latin, so we should apply the rule more associated with Latin roots (in English, at least)

if it wasn’t clear, i don’t actually think /gif/ is wrong per se

it turns out you’ve been saying a lot of things wrong lol

hahaha oh man, i guess my pronunciation skills need some work then. gotta brush up on my language skills for sure. what other words did i mispronounce?