The creator of the “GIF,” Steve Wilhite, and he declared that we’re saying it wrong during an interview with the New York Times.  He said he was proud of his creation but remained annoyed that most people failed to get its name right.

“The Oxford English Dictionary accepts both pronunciations,” he said. “They are wrong. It is a soft ‘G,’ pronounced ‘jif.’ End of story.”  Of course, this revelation didn’t sit well with people on Twitter, where users responded with overreactions like this: “I refuse to accept this,” and “My life has no meaning any more”.

The GIF, or Graphics Interchange Format, was invented in 1987 and is widely used on the internet.  One of the most famous GIFs is the dancing baby, from 1996.