Jif peanut butter has waded into one of the most fervent debates of our modern time: the right way to pronounce GIF. The battle has raged for some time now between those with strong feelings as to the hard — or soft — pronunciation of that big “G,” but nothing settles folks down like a classic snack food, right?
For what it’s worth, which is everything at this point, Steve Wilhite, who invented the GIF file back in 1987, told the New York Times that it’s definitely pronounced softly, as in “jif.” What’s more, he even based the name of the file on this very company’s staple of American cuisine. That’s right. It’s technically “Jif,” just like the peanut butter.
But because anything goes when it comes to the Internet, it should come as no surprise that Jif’s parent company J.M. Smucker Company has teamed up with the GIF destination Giphy.com to label some extra special (and extra confusing) limited jars of Jif peanut butter with a remarkable “Gif” label. They’re currently available on Amazon — for $9.99, which will set you back nearly $5 more than the average jar for your PB&J’s.
