I dated a girl named Password for a while. She was a lot older than me, she was born in the year 1234.

Anyway, @op the exact same thing happened to me. I gotta get smarter about opsec.

Yeah, the Serenity Prayer context might help.

Grant me the serenity to accept the things I can’t change
The courage to change the things I can
And the wisdom to know the difference

You’re being downvoted because people people think you’re being obtuse, but, as a person that overuses logical thinking to a diagnosable degree, my suspicion is that you’re doing that. Also because your tone is kind of…not good.

The whole point of the Serenity Prayer (“accept the things I cannot change”) is that it includes “change the things I can” – so the things Davis is changing are things she CAN change, by definition.

But her point is that she is reframing what she believes she can and cannot change. Recategorizing, if you will.

She’s invoking the third part of the Serenity Prayer: the wisdom to know the difference. As we grow and learn, our wisdom increases, so the things that belong in the first two categories will shift.

Things that used to be things that can’t be changed are becoming things that she can.

To understand the quote, you just have to give it some space to breathe, and not be so logical about it.

Person doesn’t want to date person with OF

Person with OF doesn’t want to date person

It seems the universe is in harmony.

Still do. To be clear, I’m talking about the human species, not like moths or turtles or something. Smart phones are pretty common, actually.

Gin is closer to gif than gift?

It’s the children who are wrong, all three billion of them. The only ones who are right are me and my friends. We don’t have any justification or valid argument, we’re just right because we say we are.

That’s you. That’s what you sound like.

Also who said it’s a proper noun

Why? He has no linguistic expertise, and he didn’t have the perspective of the format’s popularity when he made that decree. And his decision was based on intentionally infringing on copyright. And it intentionally goes against the intuitive pronunciation. And the term “gif” now even refers to files that aren’t even .gif - it’s way past him.

This may sound harsh, and I want to acknowledge that he did something really awesome - but the Jif pronunciation will not survive once he, as a person, is forgotten. But the format will. It’s not his anymore.

Is that supposed to be an argument? That there are two ways to pronounce the letter g? I was actually already aware of that - even before I’d ever heard of gifs.

So your argument is actually that people who pronounce it with a hard G have just never heard anyone say it.

And we’re taking about dot-g-i-f, the format that is hugely shared as memes and as reactions in chats, a form so well known that it’s at Kleenex level of awareness - awareness that exceeds itself - ie, all other variants of this format (apng, animated webp, even webm) are called gifs.

And you’re saying that most people, which is, given the prevalence of gifs, probably most of our species at this point - most of the sentient life forms in our solar system are aware of this format’s name… But we’ve just never heard anyone say it. Except for a small, vocal minority - who exist mostly on the Internet and are deeply online. Those are the only people who have heard it said out loud.

And, in that impossible scenario, most of our species - who have, again, never heard it said it loud - billions of people - all, independently, came up with the same, supposedly incorrect, pronunciation.

That’s your argument? I feel like your case would be stronger without it.

It’s like intentionally taking a Principal Skinner stance - everyone else on earth is wrong. Except, at least Skinner was oblivious.

There’s simply no justification for the jif pronunciation. There’s an explanation - ie, because the creator of the format wanted to float his success on the back of a peanut butter brand. And it didn’t even work - no one calls it “jif” and yet it’s probably got better name recognition than the peanut butter. But - even as weak as that explanation is, an explanation is not a justification. A justified pronunciation - even if it’s different from the original pronunciation, is one people natively come up with, and yet is always the same.

Pronunciation of words is decided by consensus - and while of course people mispronounce things, what that means is, they pronounce it differently from the accepted cultural norm.

We don’t get all in a knot because Americans prove things differently from British people - even though they originally set the rules for English. And we don’t pronounce things the way we do because George Washington (being analogous to wilhite (or whatever his name was)) told us to; we pronounce things as we do because of cultural consensus.

Wilhite’s intention was literally to use the name recognition of the peanut butter to further his own success - which, like, who cares - but the simple fact that he made that decision (and to be clear, regardless of our opinion on copyright, is a bad way to make the decision) strongly implies that he was aware that his pronunciation was unnatural.

The fact that this conversation even comes up is proof that culturally we reject wilhite’s pronunciation. It’s a lost battle - the only reason I get involved in these threads is because I have a hard time watching the same 3 talking points (on both sides) and the same 3 rebuttals - all of which attempt seem to use facts and logic to determine “correct” pronunciation - when the truth is, the pronunciation has already been decided, and soft-G pronounces deserve to understand it.

Except in gift which is the linguistically closest word to gif

Also, don’t misunderstand English: as the hybrid of two very different language sources (Germanic and Latin - among many others since), there are basically no rules that don’t have exceptions.

Really, my ess cue ell? I say mysequel 100% of the time. But I’m trying to get into the Primagen’s My Squeal pronunciation

The creator of the Gradual Interface Forget wanted people to pronounce it with a J literally because he wanted it to use the name recognition of the peanut butter - and I don’t exactly care about their profits or about copyright, but it’s a bad reason.

Gift is closer to gif than giraffe…

So wealthy people exploit vulnerable people and coordinate to fill the airwaves with anti-human propaganda because some people mistakenly use a J sound?

The fact that this conversation exists is proof that the word is intuitively pronounced with a hard G.

The only reason to pronounce it like a J if because the creator liked it - and the reason he liked it was literally because of the (copyright-infringing) similarity to the peanut butter.

He made a huge contribution to the Internet by creating the format, and he deserves it gratitude. Mispronouncing gif is not the best approach to that.