Sarah Lyall’s profile of Deadspin editor Tim Burke enraged people on the Internet Tuesday, not only because it explained, in glorious New York Times-ese, what a GIF is, but also because it gave a pronunciation that has spurred some controversy: “A GIF, pronounced jif, is a compressed image file format invented in 1987. In the last decade, the animated GIF has become popular.”
Expert trolling in that NYT profile of Burke: "A GIF, pronounced jif…"
— Mike Riggs (@MikeRiggs) October 22, 2013
Refusing to RT that NYT piece about the sports GIF guy because of its insistence on pronouncing "gif" with a soft "G." #WillNeverSayJif
— Julia Chan (@JournalistJulia) October 22, 2013
While you’re apoplectic about the GIF pronunciation, let me also inform you that NYT style does not use the Oxford comma #NYTroll
— Jacob Harris (@harrisj) October 22, 2013
Lyall’s story is not the first time the Times has taken on the task of explaining to readers what a GIF is. The past few years have seen a wealth of attempts at reader enlightenment:
- Fresh From the Internet’s Attic: “Just as the LP has enjoyed a second spin among retro-minded music fans, animated GIFs — the choppy, crude snippets of video loops that hearken back to dial-up modems — are enjoying an unlikely vogue as the digital accessory of the moment.” (Feb. 13, 2013)
- Gadgetwise: Q & A: Animating Your Own GIF: “An animated GIF is a special image file created from multiple frames that appear to be moving in a constant loop. You can make them from your own photos with photo-editing software on your computer, a smartphone app or a Web site that converts your uploaded pictures.” (Nov. 6, 2012)
- Digital Diary: How GIFs Became the Perfect Medium for the Olympics: “GIFs, those simple, short animated images, should have faded into obsolescence as computers and the images they could handle became faster. They belong in a technology boneyard, decaying and forgotten, with their kindred: laserdiscs, VHS tapes, Zip drives.” (Aug. 12, 2012)
- Instant Loops of Images From an iPhone App: “Animated GIFs — graphics files that display a simple loop of images — may seem like relics of the early Web era, like a Geocities homepage or a Friendster account.” (April 7, 2011)
