Re: GIF prononciation. Word from the CREATOR!

Timmy (tsh...@undergrad.math.uwaterloo.ca) wrote:

: Bilbo Baggins <bma...@dolphin.upenn.edu> wrote:
: >Matthew Z. Rascoff (Mat...@nyo.com) wrote:
: >: [snip]
: >
: > [snip again]
: >You pronounced it _J_IF ? Good for you. You're wrong (IMHO).  I know that's
: > [more snippage]
: >debate, and they're going to come up with _G_IF (hard G). Them's the breaks.

: Gimme a break, will you?  Your statement is groundless and is quite arrogant,
: IMHO (as your universal disclaimer seems to immediately convey correctness).

First of all, I honestly don't understand the parenthetical above, so I 
won't respond to it.

Second of all... The IMHO was added after I finished the first paragraph, 
because on my reread I realized I had come off sounding extraordinarily 
arrogant and I really was just expressing My Humble Opinion, so I put the 
IMHO in there to convey the fact that I, at least, am aware that the 
lingusitics training I have is limited *and* that I was not speaking with 
the voice of the whole .net community.  If you took it to be a sort of 
throwaway insertion meant to placate would-be flamers, you greatly 
overestimate the concern I have for would-be flamers.  If you understood 
the IMHO for what it was, but didn't perceive it as sufficient to convey 
the sycophantic demeanor you might have assumed if prompted to disagree 
with someone, then you overestimate the concern I have for the approaches 
others might take to tasks I feel I do well enough.


: If you want to talk down to one of the creators, then you're showing your
: own idiocy.

Look, if I were talking to the creator of GIF about the technical aspects 
of GIF, then I would both be talking down to the creator *and* showing my 
idiocy.  I'm not.  I'm talking about the pronunciation of a new word, a 
subject in which Matt is no more an expert than I - not to say I'm a huge 
expert or anything, but I am just as qualified _on_this_subject_ as he 
is, or you are, as far as I know.


:              Sorry for the flame,

Oh.  I'm weeping. (humorous sarcasm).  I have a thicker skin than that.  
Jeez, I'm a law student -- if I don't get used to some barbs a little 
rougher than "idiot" I'm in for a rough life.

Besides.  You're not sorry. (I wouldn't be)

:                                   but I can't stand people who fly in
: the face of reason.  If you don't believe in the merits of standardization,
: then throw out anything that says "ISO 9000" on it.

I believe strongly in the merits of standardization, and I'm not about to 
reject the GIF standard just because I disagree with some people's 
pronunciation of the name.  I won't even reject the standardization of 
the pronunciation of the word, >>>once that's settled<<< which it's 
obviously not.

Disagreeing with a given standard doesn't mean that I reject the merits 
of standardization.  You and a bunch of people want _J_IF to be the standard.
There were a bunch of people, once, who wanted Betamax to be the standard 
too.  No one said that just because the VHS people wanted VHS to be the 
standard that the VHS people were against standardization.

I wouldn't go so far as to call you an idiot, per se, but your argument 
that disagreeing with a given standard implies that I reject 
standardization, well... it flies in the face of reason. ;)

: Them's the breaks.  (Sheesh, what a worthless pundit).

I'm sorry, when did they make the rule that friendly colloquialisms 
invalidate an argument or discredit the arguer?  I must have missed that 
in my undergraduate time on the division championship debate team of 
which I was a member.  

You write "Sheesh," and you're making fun of "Them's?" Okay.

: Tim

: (flame away)

Believe me, Tim, this was not a flame.



-------------------------------------------------------------------------
;) (with a wink and a smile) -- Ben Manevitz.
Pax Vobiscum (b.n.t.m.)         bma...@dolphin.upenn.edu
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
"The law is the witness and external deposit of our moral life.  Its 
history is the history of the moral development of the race.  The 
practice of it, in spite of popular jests, tends to make good citizens...."
                                         --Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes
                     _The_Path_of_the_Law_, 10 Harv.L.Rev 457, 458 (1897)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------

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