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by xdennis 365 days ago
Linguistic prescriptivism has nothing to do with it.

English has both pronunciations for "gi" based on origin. Giraffe, giant, ginger, etc from Latin; gift, give, (and presumably others) from Germanic roots.

Using the preferred one is just a matter of politeness.

Also, it's quite ironic to prescribe "linguistic prescriptivism" as wrong.

1 comments

Insisting on one out of multiple possible pronunciations when most people naturally pick a different one is the definition of linguistic prescriptivism. Politeness doesn't have anything to do with it, people are not required to let individuals dictate how our collective language works.