It’s pronounced GIF.

Summary by Krater

Tom Scott explores the linguistic debate surrounding the pronunciation of the acronym GIF, examining statistics, descriptivism, and psycholinguistics to explain why the hard G pronunciation is more common despite the inventor's preference for a soft G.

From the video

Answers: How is GIF pronounced and why do people say it that way?

• GIF pronunciation
• Descriptivism in linguistics
• Acronym pronunciations
• Psycholinguistics of new words
• Lexicon statistics

What it concludes

• 70% of people worldwide pronounce GIF with a hard G according to a 2014 survey.
• The Oxford English Dictionary accepts both pronunciations of GIF.
• English acronyms do not necessarily follow the pronunciation of the words they stand for, as seen in JPEG, LASER, and SCUBA.
• Using words starting with GI in general, the hard G pronunciation (gi) is more common.