[tooki]

Originally Posted by PacHead

Nt rlly, I blv t's bcs whn yr brn ss jst cnsnnts, nd t's nt n bvs bbrvtn f smthng, thn yr brn wll fll n the mssng vwls.

There's only internet lore to support such "beliefs".

That's only because we write 5 vowels and 21 consonants, so guessing is more likely to be correct. There's nothing about vowels that makes them intrinsically unimportant.

Basically, that's error correction, not some magic anything. We can't correctly insert missing letters, we can only make educated guesses. Out of context, it becomes much harder, and the error rate will increase.

tooki

[analogika]

Originally Posted by PacHead

Ok fine, you speak a different tongue, so I could maybe understand somebody with a totally different language having a different 'obvious' pronounciation than an English speaker, but the morons I'm talking about are the native English speakers. They have no excuse like you do.

Actually, he just made it pretty damn clear that he speaks English better than *you* do.

:snicker:

[production_coordinator]

I would hate to be a printer today.

[ghporter]

It was my impression that CompuServe regarded the 'g' in "GIF" to be a hard 'g.' Considering the fuss they made about collecting royalties on the format (and how quiet they got when someone pointed out that LZW compression itself was covered by someone else's patent), I'd think they were the authority.

There have been a number of "killer graphic format standard" since the GIF debacle, including PNG and JPEG2000. You may notice that there are more PNGs around nowadays, but it hasn't "taken over." Neither did the technically superior JPEG2000 displace older JPG formats. This new format may get traction in some areas, and may even become popular in those areas, but it is NOT going to "kill" any other format.

[Goldfinger]

First time I hear "ping" as well. It's Pee-en-gee for me. Saying "ping" is as illogical as it gets. Why would you add a letter in the first place ? Listen to Oisin, he is THE language authority on this forum if you ask me.

[voodoo]

WMP is always WiMP in my book. Logical on so many levels.

V

[tooki]

People, people... it's not about "what's logical for the language". Calling a PNG 'ping' is a convention in English. Who knows where it started? Who cares? The fact is, in English-speaking countries, the dominant pronunciation among people in the web and computer fields is "ping", not "pee-en-gee".

tooki

[turtle777]

Originally Posted by tooki

The fact is, in English-speaking countries, the dominant pronunciation among people in the web and computer fields is "ping", not "pee-en-gee".

Sources, please.

I have not heard of it being called "ping" until here, today. For me, it was always P.N.G.

-t

[Eug Wanker]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PNG

PNG (Portable Network Graphics) is a losslessly compressed bitmap image format. PNG was created to both improve upon and replace the GIF format with an image file format that does not require a patent license to use. PNG is officially pronounced as "ping" (/pɪŋ/ in IPA), but it is often just spelled out — possibly to avoid confusion with the network tool ping.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GIF

Some English-speakers pronounce the acronym "GIF" with a plosive (as in the word "gift"). Others pronounce it with an affricate (as in the word "giraffe"). There is evidence, including comments from Bob Berry, one of the format's creators, suggesting the affricate pronunciation is correct. Further evidence of the affricate pronunciation comes from Steve Wilhite, another one of the format's creators, who suggested that "Choosy programmers choose GIF", which suggests using the pronunciation of "Jif", a brand of peanut butter that used the advertising slogan "Choosy moms choose Jif."
The creators of the file format pronounced the acronym as "JIF" during its unveiling presentation in the 1980s.

[Madferret]

Originally Posted by PacHead

I never even knew that there was a holy war over that, I always assumed it was pronounced 'gif' with a hard g, the other way just sounds stupid and only a moron would pronounce it as 'jif'.

Choosy pronunciators choose JIF.

[turtle777]

OK, give me two minutes, and wiki will confirm P.N.G.

LOL

-t

[CharlesS]

Originally Posted by PacHead

I didn't look at that link, but it really doesn't matter to me what the inventors called it for. The pronounciation of certain words is so obvious and I don't like people who try to be all fancy like idiots who have certain first or last names for example and they are supposed to be pronounced in a certain way that has nothing to do with the spelling of that name. These people are posers.

I'm half Slavic. Watch it.

Just because some people's names don't sound exactly the way they would if they were pronounced phonetically in English doesn't mean that they "have nothing to do with the spelling of that name." Guess what, different languages have different pronunciation rules.

[TETENAL]

Originally Posted by Salty

Why is it microsoft is wanting to put this on cameras but is calling it WINDOWS? Cameras don't use Windows. Neither do Macs.

That's exactly the point. Microsoft wants people to see Windows Media and Windows Photo everywhere on devices and have people think "hey, this works with Windows (I better not get a Mac)".

[tavilach]

BMP = "bump"?

I always say bee-em-pee.

[tavilach]

Originally Posted by tooki

There's only internet lore to support such "beliefs".

That's only because we write 5 vowels and 21 consonants, so guessing is more likely to be correct. There's nothing about vowels that makes them intrinsically unimportant.

Basically, that's error correction, not some magic anything. We can't correctly insert missing letters, we can only make educated guesses. Out of context, it becomes much harder, and the error rate will increase.

tooki

It works in Hebrew, no?

[analogika]

Originally Posted by tavilach

It works in Hebrew, no?

It makes for great bits of interpretability in the Bible and leads to such amusing mistranslations as the "camel through the eye of a needle" thing ("camel" and "rope" are written the same, but pronounced with a different vowel).

[Oisín]

Originally Posted by tooki

People, people... it's not about "what's logical for the language". Calling a PNG 'ping' is a convention in English. Who knows where it started? Who cares? The fact is, in English-speaking countries, the dominant pronunciation among people in the web and computer fields is "ping", not "pee-en-gee".

Precisely! Well said. This was exactly my point, which I think got lost somewhere along the way...

That's only because we write 5 vowels and 21 consonants, so guessing is more likely to be correct. There's nothing about vowels that makes them intrinsically unimportant.

While I agree completely that filling in vowels is mere error correction (and not infallible), there is something (in Indo-European languages, at least) that makes vowels, not unimportant, but more malleable and liable to change than consonants, and therefore also easier to substitute, or remove completely. If you, instead of removing vowels in words, substitute them with different vowels, it’s still relatively easy (in most cases) to guess your way back to the proper wording; try the same thing with consonants (even remaining within a narrow sphere of relatedness), and it gets a lot harder. If you hear someone say they’ve put out traps in their house because they have a mace infestation in the basement, it probably wouldn’t take you more than half a second or so to automatically correct ‘mace’ to the proper word, ‘mice’; if you hear the same someone saying they’ve put out traps in their house because they have a mike infestation in their basement, it would take you a lot longer, if indeed you’d be able to figure out what the hell the person was talking about without asking, at all.

Also, I don’t think the fact that there are only five vowels, but 21 consonants, in English is really the decisive factor; rather, it’s the fact that there are many more consonants than vowels in normal English words (okay, the two are kind of related). If you remove all vowels from words in a language with a more restrictive set of phonotactics (such as Vietnamese for example, which has 11 vowels and 14 consonants, and allows no internal consonant clusters at all), it won’t be possible to guess your way back to the original at all, since the vowels make up a proportionally larger part of the individual word than in English.

[Doofy]

Here's the news from England:

It's pee-en-gee. And gif as in "git".

[zmcgill]

Originally Posted by tavilach

BMP = "bump"?

I always say bee-em-pee.

No dummy, it's 'bimp.' That should be totally obvious as it's the only thing that would ever make sense eeeevaaar.

[ghporter]

According to the group that invented it, PNG IS pronounced "ping."

Frankly, English speakers in general (if not all English speakers) tend to reduce pronounciation to the shortest, least complex form possible without losing the (relative) uniqueness of the word being pronounced. This is especially true in jargon, where the possibility of misunderstanding is reduced by the group's common terminology and more specific contexts. It's also found in regional dialects and accents. Know what "bob whar" is? I do because it's regional and I've been exposed to the accent and dialect.

In the military, it's not uncommon to have a conversation in which nearly all the subjects are acronyms or initials, or "code words". "I got PCS orders today, so I'll be hitting TMO and SATO after lunch." "Really? Where to?" "I'm headed for DC for training, then to the Palms for special equipment, and after that, I hit the sandbox." Most GIs will at least get the gist of this conversation, including the initials and locales mentioned, while non-GIs just won't have a clue. And in the various specialties, you'll find even more jargon with more reduction in pronounciation.

There are also groups that go the other way, adding words to produce rhyming phrases instead of reducing pronounciation. This is not only a Cockney thing. In the Air Force, the Wing Commander (the position, not the game!) is often called the "wing king," and the headquarters building is called the "head shed." There are lots and lots more examples. Basically, people just say what sounds best to them and their peers. This is how language evolves.

[Madferret]

Originally Posted by what_the_heck

Sources, please.

I have not heard of it being called "ping" until here, today. For me, it was always P.N.G.

-t

Ditto.

[Madferret]

Originally Posted by ghporter

on terminology and more specific contexts. It's also found in regional dialects and accents. Know what "bob whar" is?

Barb wire?

[tooki]

Originally Posted by tavilach

It works in Hebrew, no?

Hebrew's not English (nor any other language that uses the Latin alphabet).

tooki

[tooki]

Originally Posted by Oisín

Also, I don’t think the fact that there are only five vowels, but 21 consonants, in English is really the decisive factor; rather, it’s the fact that there are many more consonants than vowels in normal English words (okay, the two are kind of related). If you remove all vowels from words in a language with a more restrictive set of phonotactics (such as Vietnamese for example, which has 11 vowels and 14 consonants, and allows no internal consonant clusters at all), it won’t be possible to guess your way back to the original at all, since the vowels make up a proportionally larger part of the individual word than in English.

Indeed. You got my point -- the exact number is irrelevant. (Note that I said that we SPELL 5 vowels and 25 consonants, not that English HAS that number of sounds -- English has around 11 vowels and somewhere around 25 consonants (depending on what features you count). The alphabet is only a rough approximation of the sound system.)

A vowel-less spelling, for example, would be utterly incapable of distinguishing "lose" and "loose" (both "ls"), "fat" and "fate" (both "ft"), etc.

In Hebrew, it sorta works because of the structure that uses vowel-less roots, with meaning-carrying vowels. It's not random, and English doesn't work at all like that.

tooki

[CharlesS]

Originally Posted by tooki

Hebrew's not English (nor any other language that uses the Latin alphabet).

Heh, Czech has a lot of words (such as the last name I'm stuck with) that leave out a ton of vowels...

[tooki]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but my statement was, to put it in your instance, that Hebrew ≠ Czech. I think that's still correct, no?

And also correct me if I'm wrong, but I think Czech just allows long consonant clusters that would be impossible in English.

tooki

[CharlesS]

Originally Posted by tooki

Correct me if I'm wrong, but my statement was, to put it in your instance, that Hebrew ≠ Czech. I think that's still correct, no?

And also correct me if I'm wrong, but I think Czech just allows long consonant clusters that would be impossible in English.

tooki

Yeah, I read the (or any other language that uses the Latin alphabet) statement as being that Hebrew was the only language where it "works" to make the reader infer the vowel sound that needs to go somewhere in order to pronounce a word, since that's what you seemed to be talking about.

Czech does indeed like to jam tons of consonants together without vowels. There are some words with no vowels at all. Lots of times, as with my last name, some vowel sound is implied even though there's no vowel there, just like with PNG.

[TETENAL]

Originally Posted by CharlesS

the last name I'm stuck with...

Marriage

[CharlesS]

Er, I'm male.

If I ever were to get married (an extremely unlikely prospect at this point, given that I've managed to live 24.5 years without ever being in any sort of relationship at all), I'd be quite understanding of the other party wanting to keep her name, though, which I'm guessing is probably what would happen unless hers was even stranger than mine.

Isn't this a bit off topic now?

[voodoo]

Originally Posted by TETENAL

That's exactly the point. Microsoft wants people to see Windows Media and Windows Photo everywhere on devices and have people think "hey, this works with Windows (I better not get a Mac)".

Macs run Windows now so..

V

[voodoo]

Originally Posted by Doofy

Here's the news from England:

It's pee-en-gee. And gif as in "git".

Norway, Spain & Iceland concur.

V

[Oisín]

Originally Posted by CharlesS

Czech does indeed like to jam tons of consonants together without vowels. There are some words with no vowels at all. Lots of times, as with my last name, some vowel sound is implied even though there's no vowel there, just like with PNG.

Strč prst skrz krk, anyone?

(For those wondering: the liquids (r and l) can function both as consonants and vowels in Czech, sort of like y in English)

[ghporter]

Originally Posted by FrankeniMac

Barb wire?

Ding-ding-ding! A winner! That's just one odd thing in the local dialect. If you order a soda around here, they may ask you "what kind of Coke do you want?" Other areas not far from here call 'em "soda water." Where I grew up, it's "pop." It's all local, that's all.

[MindFad]

Originally Posted by PacHead

I never even knew that there was a holy war over that, I always assumed it was pronounced 'gif' with a hard g, the other way just sounds stupid and only a moron would pronounce it as 'jif'.

I pronounce it "jiff." Seeing as how you are a moron, I'm sticking with "jiff." Big moron morony-pants.

PNG: "ping"
GIF: "jiff"
JPG/JPEG: "jaypeg"
PSD: "pissed" (just kidding)

[jebjeb]

I have always pronounced FAQ (as in Frequently Asked Questions) as FAR QUE. It always goes down a treat.

"Have you checked out the far que?"

As for the file formats:

GIF = GIF (as in gift)
JPG = Jay Peg
PNG = P N G

[shabbasuraj]

MS Flop #54765475645434536

[analogika]

Originally Posted by tooki

A vowel-less spelling, for example, would be utterly incapable of distinguishing "lose" and "loose" (both "ls"), "fat" and "fate" (both "ft"), etc.

well, if English spelling were even semi-logical, they'd be spelled "looz" and "loos", though of course then you couldn't distinguish between "loos", "las", and "lows".

[Y3a]

WMP = Worthless Microsoft Product

[Peter]

Yet Another Worthless Microsoft Product.

[- - e r i k - -]

Originally Posted by voodoo

Norway, Spain & Iceland concur.

V

Sorry. Norway does not concur. It has always been pronounced ping.

[Salty]

Canada votes PNG.

[TheoCryst]

The great *snicker* state of Arizona (USA) votes for the following:

PNG = Pee En Gee
GIF = Jiff
BMP = Bee Em Pee
JPG/JPEG = Jay-Peg
WMP = A dumb idea

[PurpleGiant]

Australia doesn't really care. It's gone to get another beer.

[- - e r i k - -]

I'm with you mate.

[torsoboy]

Another vote for Pee En Gee here. Never heard it called "ping" ever. Seems like the minority call it "ping" and are getting pretty whiney about others not saying it their way.

And I always called gif "jiff" until people in my graphics classes started making fun of me for it about 6 years ago... it is now "gif" to me.

[olePigeon]

Originally Posted by PurpleGiant

Australia doesn't really care. It's gone to get another beer.

NO POOFTERS!!!

[ghporter]

Originally Posted by torsoboy

Another vote for Pee En Gee here. Never heard it called "ping" ever. Seems like the minority call it "ping" and are getting pretty whiney about others not saying it their way.

And I always called gif "jiff" until people in my graphics classes started making fun of me for it about 6 years ago... it is now "gif" to me.

I still have to give credence to the people who invented PNG for deciding how to pronounce it. They specifically discount either "pinj" or "pee en gee."

It looks very much like the folks that developed the GIF format intended the 'g' to be soft because of the FAQ they distributed with CompuShow.

[TETENAL]

http://news.com.com/Microsoft+shows+...l?tag=nefd.top

[- - e r i k - -]

Originally Posted by torsoboy

Another vote for Pee En Gee here. Never heard it called "ping" ever. Seems like the minority call it "ping" and are getting pretty whiney about others not saying it their way.

And I always called gif "jiff" until people in my graphics classes started making fun of me for it about 6 years ago... it is now "gif" to me.

I don't see why the P-N-G people make a fuzz about it really. If the creators themselves intended it to be ping, why is it even an argument?

I\0'm annoyed when people mispronounce my name too

[Oisín]

Originally Posted by - - e r i k - -

I don't see why the P-N-G people make a fuzz about it really. If the creators themselves intended it to be ping, why is it even an argument?

I think it’s mostly because, while <ping> is obviously the correct way to pronounce PNG, it’s not the obvious or logical way of pronouncing it—and this fact makes its pronunciation a ‘test’ of how 1337 you are; it’s a kind of mini-diglossia, with a high and a low variant.

I'm annoyed when people mispronounce my name too

I would be too, if my name were Erik Veland: disregarding the exact tonal qualities, vowel lengths and qualities, etc., that the name has in Norwegian, it’s still quite an easy name to say more or less correctly for close to anyone, regardless of native language (as long as it’s at least European). I don’t get too annoyed when foreigners (or even Danes) mispronounce my name, though, ‘cause it’s quite uncommon in any language, and no one can really be expected to know how to pronounce it, unless I’ve actually told them so (and many are still unable). Similarly, unless they’re part of the ‘inner circle’ in the know, no one can really be expected to know intuitively that PNG is supposed to be pronounced <ping>.