Jif Peanut Butter Teamed Up with Giphy to FINALLY Settle How You Pronounce GIF (Maybe?)

Isadora Baum
Isadora Baum
Isadora Baum is a freelance writer, content marketer, and author of 5-Minute Energy. She can't resist a good sample, a margarita, a new HIIT class, or an easy laugh. She writes for various magazines, such as Men's Health, Women's Health, Well+Good, LIVESTRONG, POPSUGAR, SELF, Health, Cooking Light, Eating Well, and more.
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updated Feb 26, 2020
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Credit: Jif/ Amazon

Okay, so you’ve probably heard of Jif, as in the peanut butter, and GIF, as in those fun memes, graphics, and videos you watch for entertainment from Giphy. And you also probably realize that there’s been a rather exhausting internet debate as to how to pronounce GIF. Hard or soft “g?” Some people go with hard, but it has also been known for being soft. 

Well, to clear things up once and for all (maybe?), Jif and Giphy have teamed up to show the world how to pronounce GIF, and it might make some people a little upset. Jif is releasing a special jar of peanut butter that says Gif on the label instead of Jif. So, when you put the special jar and the regular Jif jar next to each other, you’ll be able to see that they should read differently. Pretty cool, huh?

That’s right, you heard it right here folks, Giphy and Jif are trying to say that GIF is pronounced with a hard “g” instead of the soft “g.” That’s a bold statement! It does, unfortunately, go against what the creator of the GIF, Steve Wilhite, said in 2013. At the annual Webby Awards, Wilhite said that GIF is pronounced as Jif. But let’s forget about that little fact for the purpose of the story.

GIF stands for “Graphics Interchange Format,” so it would make a lot of sense for it to be a hard “g” rather than a soft “g.” I’m sorry for the all the haters who might disagree (and be wrong).

So, whether you feel strongly about the debate as to whether GIF is a hard or soft “g,” or you just want a cool new jar of Jif that’s unique and playful, you can buy one of the special edition jars of Jif on Amazon (currently out of stock) and spread it all over your toast, and add it to your smoothies and oatmeal in the morning. And after that, you can rub it in your friends’ faces who said that GIF is pronounced like Jif.