[npteljes]

I have the same experience - but with gif. Mind you, me and my circle are not native English speakers.

The debate itself is old. "Since the 90s" Wikipedia says, and keep in mind the format was is from 1987 - so I would say the debate is on from the get-go. Appropriate, too, if you think back, arguing about this kind of stuff was pretty common. Emacs vs vim, browser wars, different kinds of computers, tribalism everywhere.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pronunciation_of_GIF

[dspillett]

I think “since the 90s” here is “since the late 90s”. When I first was aware of gif files (in the early 90s IIRC) I only saw the name and meaning in print so went with the hard G to match the g's pronunciation in graphics, I don't think I was aware of the original intention to pronounce it jif until somewhere in the early 2000s, at which point the use of the hard g was almost ubiquitous and the soft g idea was presented as an interesting/amusing aside.

[npteljes]

One of Wiki's sources date it back as far as 1994, and that's a news article, so the thing must have been going on for a while.

Thinking about it, I think I understand why hard G makes sense for people. With GPU, we pronounce the the individual letters, as it's clearly an abbreviation - as no sane English word starts with "gp". With GIF though, even though it's an abbreviation, it looks a lot like a normal word, "gift", and English also has "give", another one with a hard G, so it feels familiar to say. Moreover, the US, where GIF comes from, has Jif already established as a peanut butter brand, so it makes sense to not pronounce a newly invented, differently written word the same as an already established thing. Well, at least to some it makes sense!