Differences in pronunciation are mildly curious and amusing sometimes, as long as people are good natured about it.
What gets to me though is when some people (not this thread) become adamant that everybody pronounce things the same way. I don't mean this thread, but people sometimes get really aggressive about this stuff on the internet in general and especially on youtube.
I remember seeing a gameplay video a long time ago where somebody got so frustrated with people arguing over how he pronounced some fictional character's name, that he killed the character off.

My personal attitude is that I don't concede much authority to a creator or trademark owner to decide how their made up words should be pronounced. Maybe it's reasonable to say that I should grant them that, but I just don't - I perceive it to be an unnecessary, and thus arrogant, overstep. If people aren't pronouncing something "correctly", then maybe they should have spelled it differently, or better yet they should just ask themselves why they care so much.
I don't recall if I've ever heard the terms "Riva" (Diva) or "Ti" (Tee-Eye) pronounced by an nVidia (in-Vidia) marketing spokesman, but even if I did, it wouldn't really matter to me. They'd have to issue an official press release to clarify that such pronunciation was officially endorsed and not just the preference of that one person. Upon issuing such a press release, I'd be asking myself why these highly paid people sat around a conference table and even discussed this. The stupidity of that would make me care even less about their opinion.

The creator of .GIF is entitled to his opinion, but I think he's overstepping his self-assumed authority if he's actually trying to tell the world how to pronounce a sequence of 3 letters which are not even a real word. I don't know if he actually pushes people about this, but if he does, then he should get over himself.

I think what happens with people in general is that we read things to ourselves in text which are almost never said aloud, or are only spoken among a small circle of friends. As a result, we get very comfortable with our own imagined pronunciation, and never hear anything to contradict it. Then years later, we're shocked to realize other people didn't interpret the same pronunciation as we did. Most people can take that in stride, but some people are control freaks and get silly about it.

There are so many words that have been at the center of pronunciation controversies. Ryu. Taito. Ninja Gaiden. GIF. VIA. Probably hundreds more.
And some real words too: Solder. Aluminum. Herb. Those differences are cultural.

There is this Nvidia guy that sometimes appears on the PC Perspective YT channel. Well worth watching, he's quite knowledgeable. Anyway, he said 1080 Ti in both ways! Tee Eye as well as Tie 😁

shamino wrote:

I think what happens with people in general is that we read things to ourselves in text which are almost never said aloud, or are only spoken among a small circle of friends. As a result, we get very comfortable with our own imagined pronunciation, and never hear anything to contradict it. Then years later, we're shocked to realize other people didn't interpret the same pronunciation as we did.

^This.

Getting back to the GIF creator, his insistence on the pronunciation reminds me of certain people who go out of their way to do or say things in attention-seeking ways. For example, putting the smile emoticon in reverse. (: Or wearing their clothes inside out. Or talking to friends about how much they dislike some menu item, then ordering it in front of those friends. Then they get to be the center of attention during the entire meal.

clueless1 wrote:

shamino wrote:

I think what happens with people in general is that we read things to ourselves in text which are almost never said aloud, or are only spoken among a small circle of friends. As a result, we get very comfortable with our own imagined pronunciation, and never hear anything to contradict it. Then years later, we're shocked to realize other people didn't interpret the same pronunciation as we did.

^This.

Getting back to the GIF creator, his insistence on the pronunciation reminds me of certain people who go out of their way to do or say things in attention-seeking ways. For example, putting the smile emoticon in reverse. (: Or wearing their clothes inside out. Or talking to friends about how much they dislike some menu item, then ordering it in front of those friends. Then they get to be the center of attention during the entire meal.

100%. Like I was saying Lie-nux for years because when I read it was named after a guy called LinusI had only heard that name from Snoopy. I heard other people calling it Lin-ux and thought "why would you pronounce it that way??". Then I learned Mr Torvalds was Finnish...

brassicGamer wrote:

Like I was saying Lie-nux for years because when I read it was named after a guy called LinusI had only heard that name from Snoopy. I heard other people calling it Lin-ux and thought "why would you pronounce it that way??". Then I learned Mr Torvalds was Finnish...

🤣...same here. Then there's Ubuntu. I always pronounced it "Ooo-boon-too", but then I'd hear it pronounced all kinds of different ways:
"Uh-boon-too"
"You-boon-too"
"Uh-bun-tuh"
"Uh-bun-too"
and every other permutation of the above syllables. 🤣.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5IfHm6R5le0

Going by the same logic applied to Mr jif... Linus too, is making us say it a certain way. Although the 'Lin' prefix is derived from his name, he says, even in Sweden and Finland it should be pronounced the "Lin-ucks" way? what a git. o.0

Thanks to brassics more detailed grouping mechanism for these words... have got me thinking. Is GIF an initialism or name? If it is an initialism, it shouldn't be pronounced, or if it is pronounced, it is down to accent and doesn't matter. jif (soft G) is as valid gif (hard G). The only confusion arising if the listener cannot deduce if the speaker is talking about an image format, or a kitchen cleaner, or peanut butter (US apparently).

In my mind I say "Tay Jay Vey" for the French train (letters pronounced in French, despite my native tongue being English).

spiroyster wrote:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5IfHm6R5le0 […]
Show full quote

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5IfHm6R5le0

Going by the same logic applied to Mr jif... Linus too, is making us say it a certain way. Although the 'Lin' prefix is derived from his name, he says, even in Sweden and Finland it should be pronounced the "Lin-ucks" way? what a git. o.0

Thanks to brassics more detailed grouping mechanism for these words... have got me thinking. Is GIF an initialism or name? If it is an initialism, it shouldn't be pronounced, or if it is pronounced, it is down to accent and doesn't matter. jif (soft G) is as valid gif (hard G). The only confusion arising if the listener cannot deduce if the speaker is talking about an image format, or a kitchen cleaner, or peanut butter (US apparently).

In my mind I say "Tay Jay Vey" for the French train (letters pronounced in French, despite my native tongue being English).

Good question. I've never heard a French person say TGV so I have always said it in an English way. I would be guilty of hypocrisy if I carried on doing this though because I constantly get into this debate with people. There is a plague of English people who pronounce nougat as 'nugget'. IT'S A FRENCH WORD SO PRONOUNCE IT IN FRENCH!!! Also, there is a town in Buckinghamshire called Beaconsfield. People from there pronounce it 'Beckons-field' but Beaconsfield Road in Brighton is pronounced 'Beacons-field' because they've mostly never heard the regional pronunciation. So are both correct? Or should the name of the road be pronounced the same way as its namesake? Would anyone know what the hell I was talking about if I did?! Endless confusion.

Perhaps the biggest crime these days is pretending to understand what someone just said o.0

Now to load this gif file, I pour it into the CD slot? Or is that a bottleneck and I should use spray straight onto the CPU? har har 😵

brassicGamer wrote:

Good question. I've never heard a French person say TGV so I have always said it in an English way. I would be guilty of hypocrisy if I carried on doing this though because I constantly get into this debate with people. There is a plague of English people who pronounce nougat as 'nugget'. IT'S A FRENCH WORD SO PRONOUNCE IT IN FRENCH!!! Also, there is a town in Buckinghamshire called Beaconsfield. People from there pronounce it 'Beckons-field' but Beaconsfield Road in Brighton is pronounced 'Beacons-field' because they've mostly never heard the regional pronunciation. So are both correct? Or should the name of the road be pronounced the same way as its namesake? Would anyone know what the hell I was talking about if I did?! Endless confusion.

Reminds me of a midwest US thing:
The state of Arkansas.
short version:

Actually, it took some time for Arkansans to come to agreement on pronunciation. In 1881, a heated disagreement between the state's two senators, one who said “arKANzis” and the other who said “ARkansaw,” led to a ruling by the state legislature making the “ARkansaw” pronunciation official. Ever since, Americans have gone along with the s-less, first-syllable-stressed version of Arkansas. At least when it comes to the state name. The people of Kansas don’t go any further than that. For them it's the “arKANzis” River, and “arKANzis” City.

clueless1 wrote:

Actually, it took some time for Arkansans to come to agreement on pronunciation. In 1881, a heated disagreement between the state's two senators, one who said “arKANzis” and the other who said “ARkansaw,” led to a ruling by the state legislature making the “ARkansaw” pronunciation official. Ever since, Americans have gone along with the s-less, first-syllable-stressed version of Arkansas. At least when it comes to the state name. The people of Kansas don’t go any further than that. For them it's the “arKANzis” River, and “arKANzis” City.

I hadn't noticed it only applies to the state name. Now that's confusing.